Spells & Spirits

tricksandtoads:

Warming up to the idea, Gabriel smiled as he nodded enthusiastically. They would have to be pretty careful choosing their words when telling her, not wanting to shoot themselves in the foot before they even really started. They may have been alike in a tendency for tricks, but she was still their mother and Gabriel wasn’t looking to get in trouble both at school and home for this.

“Okay so maybe it’s worth a shot. We’ve got to make sure however we get ahold of her is Crowley-proof though, which’ll be pretty difficult if he even begins to think about starting to maybe suspect we’re up to something.” It seemed to Gabriel that Crowley was always managing to appear both entirely disinterested in the ongoings of his students, and obsessively in the know about everyone’s secrets. Sometimes Gabe counted it as a miracle he and Balthazar’s own angelic secret hadn’t been figured out by the house leader.

“Mm, yes. That takes out letters and regular fire-calls. We could send her a Patronus, but those are always unpredictable and tricky for long conversation.” Balthazar worried his lower lip as he thought, knowing that it would be crucial to make it both easy to use and hard to track, thanks to Crowley. It seemed to him that their plan, while remarkable, was only getting more and more complicated as time went on. Mostly thanks to their Head of House.

“Of course, there’s always the option of speaking face to face, but we would have to plan rather far in advance to make sure everything is going smoothly.” 

x

tricksandtoads:

“‘Hi Mother, sorry I haven’t written in a while, how’s the weather? By the way, we’re planning a mindlessly chaotic prank on our house because it’s better than actually doing schoolwork, mind covering for us to our snotskrewt of a teacher?’ Yeah, that’s going to work well.” Gabriel rolled his eyes.

Although he knew she wasn’t half as unaware of their pranking as most mothers would be, it would still be just plain weird to bring her in on one of their tricks. Technically, they were adults. And what kind of fully grown wizard has to call in his mom to save them from some dumb teacher?

Then again, Crowley had been waiting awhile for them to slip up, and something of this scale would just make his whole year. Gabe worried at his lip, thinking it over and weighing the pros against the cons.

“Do you really think she would? I mean, it is really kind of a cruel joke, would we have to tell her all the details?”

“I think that it’s worth a shot. You know perfectly well that she is aware of our hobbies already, and I truly think she’ll be shocked moreso that we haven’t done something like this already. We don’t have to give her all the details, of course, but I’ve heard tale of Mother being quite mischievous in her own day.”

He stopped his pacing for a moment, fingers still drumming against his arms as he smirked softly, remembering well when he had eavesdropped in one of their Mother’s get-togethers with her old friends, reminiscing on their ‘good days’.  

“And she’s never particularly been all that fond of Crowley after he tried to keep us after for a summer-session of detention. You remember how livid she was? Completely mental.” Balthazar snickered softly, shaking his head. “It probably wouldn’t have been so bad if it wasn’t for us having plans to go see Grandmum whilst she was still up and around.” 

Balthazar vaguely realized how nostalgic he was becoming and he waved off his thoughts, turning on his heel towards his brother again, waiting to see his reaction. 

tricksandtoads:

Gabriel laughed, fully enjoying Balthazar’s panic, until their mother was brought up. He wrinkled his nose as he raised his wand, grumbling about his fun being ruined.

“Jeez calm down! I’m insulted you think so little of me that you assume I’d actually leave you like this.” He faked a sniffle and pressed a hand to his heart dramatically. “Balthazar I can’t believe you’d soil my good name with your little faith in your poor twin brother.”

He raised his wand and said the counter spell, reversing all the spells that had been cast in the area with a wide sweep of his wand. Getting Balthazar riled up probably wasn’t the best idea, especially since it would take two to stick the jinxes to the birds later. Gabriel crossed his arms and shrugged.

“Besides, even Mom would have to recognize the brilliant planning and skill involved in this plan.” Their mother finding out about half of the things he did at school was almost reason enough not to do them. He usually went out of his way to avoid approval from authority, but disappointing his mom was easily one of his least favorite things. Although apparently not enough to make sure he remembered to write her regularly.

Balthazar wiggled his movable fingers once Gabriel lifted the jinx, fixing himself by finally being able to mend the minor tears and scratches in his clothes and skin with a flick of his wand. He gave his brother a small, almost sarcastic, chuckle as he looked the room over, making sure everything was back to normal.

“Right. Your good name, Gabriel. The one I keep clean, yes? I’ve saved your ass more times than I care to remember, so I can throw you under every so often if I choose to.” He bent to straighten a pile of books, knowing it’d be better to magically carry them to their dorm rather than do it manually. 

“And Mother, able to spot genius in evil plans or not, would probably disapprove of a few things, at least. Like it or not, Crowley will probably contact her at some point whilst this is going on, considering he likes to hit where it hurts.” He thought for a moment, picking at one of the now loose strands on his sleeve.

A sort of recognition passed over his face after a beat of silence. “Maybe it would be wise to let her know, actually. That way, if she knows already, she could be a part of it.” He began pacing a bit, his fingers drumming against his crossed arms, his mind whirling. 

“Of course, it may be crazy, but…you remember the time we experimented on the neighbor’s flower bed when we were young, using that potion we got from Diagon Alley?” He faced Gabriel, a smirk on his lips as he remembered that day, his eyes lit up like faerie lights. “Mother was in a spat with her, remember? So we told her we were going to ruin her plants and blame the gnomes. She didn’t punish us one bit, and she covered for us when the woman came by. Could be she’d be willing to do the same now.”

tricksandtoads:

“Well we can hardly know for sure unless it wears off by itself,” Gabriel shrugged, a smirk lighting his face. “I think I should probably leave the jinx on for a while longer. Wouldn’t want to disrupt the experiment and accidentally change the outcome would we?”

Of course Gabriel was going to use the antijinx to fix it, but he could hardly resist the opportunity to tease Balthazar. He began stacking the books as if getting ready to leave, whistling innocently before he spoke again.

“I’ll be back down in two hours to check to see if it’s worn off by then. You know, for the sake of letting the experiment develop and all.”

A spark of panic ran through him as Gabriel started to leave, and Balthazar felt the pit in his stomach swell in anger. He knew for a fact that Gabriel was doing this to tease him and he probably wouldn’t leave, but the opportunity for him to leave was still there. 

“I swear, Gabriel, if you leave this curse as it is, I will do everything in my power to make sure this doesn’t pan out,” He tried to keep his anger tethered, knowing that the only way to get through to Gabriel was to play his tricks back onto him. “And, you know, I’ve been meaning to firecall Mother for awhile now. I’m sure she’d love to know how we’ve both been doing. Especially in our free time.”

He knew that playing the Mother card could be risky, but it tended to get the job done. Though, if Gabriel didn’t budge from that, he could definitely do better if need be. Balthazar was fairly sure he could have even gotten the spell off himself, due to his proficiency with wordless magic, but it required effort and concentration that he didn’t possess at this time of night. 

tricksandtoads:

Gabriel beamed, mentally doing a victory dance that it had worked. Of course his experimenting wasn’t done, he still had to find and practice several other spells to pull the whole plan together, but that could wait for another day.

“Finite!” He casts towards the birds, and before his eyes they pop out of existence. He briefly wonders what that’s like, or if they ever really counted since they were created by magic. But the answer to that too could wait for another day.

“And how about now, still jellified?” He turns to Balthazar curiously.

Balthazar watched as the birds disappeared, barely blinking at the vanishing act. He glanced around quickly, making sure they were all gone before he took a step away from his brother’s side and raised his hands up again. 

“Hm,” He tried to move his fingers, still unable to feel much. They twitched slightly, when he thought about it hard enough, but for the most part, the spell was still intact. He smirked thoughtfully, turning his numb hands this way and that.

“It seems to me that the curse is still in effect, though it’s not quite as strong as it was at first. The spell would probably end up wearing off after an hour or so, possibly longer, after the source, in this case the birds, were vanished. But for the most part, it lingers just as if it were cast normally.” He paused for a moment, looking up from his hands to his brother.

“Would you mind?” He gestured slightly, knowing he wouldn’t be able to take the curse off himself. 

tricksandtoads:

“All right all right, calm down,” Gabriel muttered. He had figured he could just use a counter spell to reverse the spell that created the birds as well as the one that set them on Balthazar, but now he wondered if that would also reverse the jelly fingers jinx, which would erase their experiment completely.

“Immobulus!” He cast, freezing the birds in the air. Suspended around Balthazar’s head, they almost seemed to be part of an intricate mobile. Tiny figures just waiting to attack again as soon as they could move. “There. How do your fingers feel now?”

“Thank you,” Balthazar opened his eyes again, stepping out of the mass of frozen birds around him, trying to avoid bumping into as many as he could, the feel of their tiny bodies extremely unpleasant now. He moved to brush himself off, but he felt his fingers- or rather, he didn’t. They wouldn’t move as he willed them too and the overall feeling reminded him of the numb tingling when a limb falls asleep.

“Hmm, it seems to have worked.” He held up his hands, showing his uncooperative fingers, smirking softly to his brother. He had a feeling that he knew why Gabriel had only frozen the birds instead of vanishing them, so he took to his side and faced the swarm.

“Go on then, reverse the spell. We’ll see if the two are connected.” He gestured lightly with his numb hand towards the birds. 

tricksandtoads:

Gabriel shrugged, pointing his wand at the flittering bird. Of course, even though he aimed for the bird the spell would be an order to the whole small flock. He couldn’t imagine that was going to be exactly fun, and breathed a mental sigh of relief that he had someone to to this with.

“Oppugno.” His pronunciation and wand movements were well practiced, and within a moment the tiny birds were frantically pecking and clawing. Balthazar was almost completely obscured by wings and tiny bird bodies. In the flurry, Gabriel’d lost track of the one carrying the jinx, but he hardly thought that mattered since all were attacking rather aggressively.

“Did it work? Can you feel your fingers?” Gabriel called over the busy chirping noises, his wand raised and ready to call them off.

All Balthazar could feel from the moment Gabriel’s spell took effect was the pain of a hundred tiny claws and beaks tearing against his clothes and his flesh, desperately trying to cause him pain. He flinched away from the yellow blur, his eyes shut tight to try and prevent going blind due to a well-aimed blow.

He knew that Gabriel meant well, hearing him shouting over the sound of the birds, but he really should have thought to call off the birds before he asked him if the spell worked or not. 

“I can’t feel much of anything because of these bloody birds!” He swatted a few away, quite sure that his fingers were numb, though it was rather hard to tell. As soon as the pecking and clawing stopped, he’d be able to tell for sure. Though, with his inability to really land a hit on the swarm of birds, he figured the spell had definitely worked.

tricksandtoads:

Immediately after casting the spell, Gabriel glanced down at his fingers. They felt fine, and he wiggled them around once to make sure the spell hadn’t touched him. He looked up to Balthazar, but it seemed as though he was in possession of all his limbs too. Gabe turned his attention towards the bird, which seemed a bit stunned, but kept in the air. He stepped toward it cautiously, as if treading too heavily would upset the magic he hoped had worked.

“… Did that really do it?” Slightly disbelieving, but mostly pleased, he raised his wand again. “I suppose the only way to really make sure is for one of us to set them upon the other and see if the jinx transfers. Do you want to do the honor, or shall I?”

Balthazar stepped a bit closer too, eyeing the bird suspiciously for a moment before  he gripped his wand, twirling it once before pocketing it again. He took a small step back and raised his arms in surrender.

“I suppose I’ll do it. I was ready for it before, I’ll be ready again.” He was rather reluctant - really, who wouldn’t be? - but it was true. He had already agreed to do it earlier before they realized their mistake, he wasn’t going to back out now. 

He stood stock still, knowing that this time it would probably work as it was supposed to, his back rigid once more, his wings ruffling glamoured feathers as he braced himself.

tricksandtoads:

Gabriel dropped his own book to read the one Balthazar was holding. He glanced over the passage, his face pulled into a pleased grin by the time he finished.

“Perfect! I mean, what’s the worst that could happen? Besides one of us permanently being stuck with the jelly fingers curse or something. I think it should work if we both focus on the same bird, that one there,” he points to another canary slowly fluttering from pillar to pillar. “and each say a spell at the same time. I’ll jinx it and you bind the jinx to it? That seems like the best thing to try, unless we can figure out a way to combine jelly fingers and epoximise into one spell.” Gabriel says shrugging.

“Ready?” He asks, taking a few steps back and pulling out his wand.

Balthazar took a few steps back as soon as Gabriel did, dropping the book to join the rest, readying his wand as he stood directly across from his brother. He watched the little bird flit about, unaware of what it was about to experience. Neither of them were sure if this would work, he knew that, but they had to try.

Realistically, the probability of the spell rebounding onto one or both of them was rather high. Of course, practically any plan of Gabriel’s came with a warning label, but this one could be really risky. He took a deep breath, focusing his energy and intent on the task at hand, and he let his shoulders roll away their tension.

“Ready,” Not a moment later, the spell rolled off his tongue, the familiar crackle of magic running through him. “Epoximise!”