2: The Student

Disclaimer: This story is based on a more-or-less logical expansion of concepts and characters set forth in the "Harry Potter" novels by J.K. Rowling, who is not me; therefore, I make no money from borrowing this universe, nor do I claim to possess any right thereto. Only the Jarvey and the supporting human cast are mine.

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Chapter 2: The Student

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"MAMÁ!"

Toussaint Biguenet heard the shriek above the cacophony of the Morningside Magical Creatures Exchange. It sounded like a Jarvey. It also sounded like it spoke Spanish. Toussaint sighed. He didn't have time to spend teaching his animals English. He'd been searching for Jarveys all afternoon and was discouraged by the pickings. Usually he needed to train at least half a dozen if he hoped to produce two or three decent show Jarveys and turn a profit from his efforts. At the moment, the two carriers floating behind him contained only four Jarveys in all.

"MAMÁ!"

The little voice broke this time, and took Toussaint's heart with it. He sighed again. Gramma told him on nearly a daily basis that Manhattanville was a bad neighborhood to be tenderhearted in. He turned towards the voice.

Shit. He knew that seller. Toussaint never dealt with him if he could avoid it. Didn't look as if he could avoid it today.

"Looking for Jarveys, boy?"

Fuck you for calling me 'boy,' Toussaint thought viciously. Aloud, he said, "Got a few already, thanks." No way he was going to appear eager to deal with Colonel Slanders. No way he was eager to deal with him, but damned if he was going to leave that crying baby with the bastard.

"This one speaks Spanish."

"Too bad. Haven't got time to teach it English."

"Hey, it speaks English, too."

"Sure it does." Toussaint started to turn away.

"Damn you, runt! Talk English already!"

"Fuck you!"

Toussaint almost laughed, but he didn't need to start a fight. "Never saw that one coming."

"The market's gonna close in two hours. Fifteen Eagles and it's yours."

"Sorry, but I don't see my old friend Mr. Rockefeller in here tonight, otherwise I'd hit him up for a loan. But I'll get back to you after the Slades have their ball this year and I've picked out an heiress."

"Don't sass me, boy. This thing has papers. She's pedigreed."

"I don't care if it has a diploma. All I've got on me is nine and seven," Toussaint said. It was close enough to the truth. He had to keep at least one extra Eagle and four Dentas to buy groceries.

"That's robbery! It wouldn't even pay the cost of the Portkey!"

As if this was the only Jarvey you bought and sold today. "You want me to turn out my pockets?"

The wizard squinted angrily and wrinkled his nose. With his bald head and tiny, dark eyes, he reminded Toussaint quite forcefully of a pig. Gramma had told him pigs got mean when cornered, so Toussaint made sure he knew where his wand and the exit were.

"Shit, boy, I ain't got time for this." He held out his hand. "All right, you've got her for nine and seven."

"Papers first." Toussaint knew the drill. There were anti-Apparition wards on the market, but they only reduced fraud, not eliminated it altogether.

Surprisingly, the man only grunted slightly in annoyance before producing a properly sealed pedigree, though the animal's name appeared to have been written by a child and smudged by someone's nervous sweat. Toussaint couldn't make it out, especially as he didn't recognize the word...presumably one in Spanish. He tucked the papers away in his jacket with those belonging to the other four, and handed over the money. Then he added the Jarvey to one of his divided carriers.

The scrawniness of the animal tempted him to repent of the bargain, but just before he exited the exchange and put the mandatory Silencing Charm on the animals, it whimpered, "I wanna go home."

"We're going home," Toussaint promised.

---

"Let's see, this is Hank, that one's Babe, that's Sandy, and the little brown one with the points can be Willie. And the silver one... how about Reggie?"

"You and your Muggle baseball!" Gramma Edwina could fret, scold, and clean house all at once. She was talented that way. "And what're you doing calling a bitch Jarvey 'Reggie?'"

"It can be short for Regina," he said, never deviating from his mild tone of voice. He ended the Silencing Charm and the Jarveys all began to swear...until he opened their carriers and set down the dishes of food, at which point they dove silently for their dinner. All but the silver runt.

---

The other Jarveys ran for the food immediately. Peluchita hung back to ask, "Where's Mamá?"

The wizard with big, sad eyes in his thin, dark face looked at her in surprise. "What?"

"You say we go home. Where's Mamá?" Peluchita knew humans were less than bright, but this one struck her as behaving in an uncharacteristically dense fashion.

"I can't take you to where your momma is, but I promise, I'll take good care of you. This can be your home."

"Fuck you! Want Mamá!" Peluchita was close to panic. Don't show weakness. Scream, rant, rave...sarcasm is good, too...but don't let on that you're afraid.

Big, warm hands picked her up. Gentle hands. "I'm sorry, little Reggie. Your momma is really far away...sort of like mine. I can't take you to her. I'm a Jarvey trainer, and I can feed you and take care of you and teach you all sorts of neat stuff. I promise."

Peluchita would have objected to this 'Trainer' guy changing her name, but there was something about him. His hands and voice were kind. Sort of like the little boy who had let her chew his fingers. And he missed his mamá, too. Maybe this was a place for people with no mamá? "Can I be Reggie Peluchita?"

He seemed even more surprised, but still talked to her in a kind voice. "How about 'Reggie P.?'"

She sniffed. "I guess... I wanna go home."

"This can be your home." He held her for a long time, not insisting that she eat with the animals on the floor but feeding her from his hand.

Reggie didn't realize that she had fallen asleep between one bite and the next until she woke up on a pillow next to 'Trainer's' warm, fluffy head. Unlike any wizards or Jarveys she had met before, he smelled of something she could only call gentleness. She snuggled next to his ear and went back to sleep.

---

"Why do you read to those things? It's not as if they're going to college." Gramma Edwina was heading to work, and she liked to make certain Toussaint knew how unhappy she was with the general state of the universe before she started the dinner shift and he started a long night of homework and Jarvey training.

"They sell better if they can say something besides 'fuck,'" he retorted.

"Those beasts are giving you a filthy mouth," she said with a scowl.

Toussaint didn't bother to argue. He only swore because he was weary of her constant criticisms of his entrepreneurial endeavors. "Here, have some Shakespeare," he said, as much to Gramma as to the animals. He began reading 'Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day?' Reggie scrambled into his lap at once. He had never needed to keep her in the pen with the rest of the untrained Jarveys...she'd taken to box training immediately and was able to heel and come when called in less than a week. He didn't even have to call her when it was time to listen to poetry; she lived for any sort of reading.

Most of the Jarveys eventually mimicked some words and phrases they'd heard in the evening reading; a few simply continued spouting profanity. Reggie was the only Jarvey Toussaint had ever encountered who asked about the meaning of words. He had to keep a dictionary by his side during 'Jarvey College,' as Edwina derisively named it, because sometimes even he wasn't quite sure what some of the words meant. Eventually he resorted to taking her to the library in his pocket and reading quietly aloud from encyclopedias to satisfy her hunger for more words.

Every time he heard her say another intelligent thing, his heart wavered painfully between soaring and plummeting, because he knew that he couldn't afford not to sell her...but that it would break his heart to let her go. Still, there were times when it broke his heart for her to stay... especially when she kept asking questions.

"Where are the other ones?"

"What other ones?"

"The other Jarveys, hombron."

"I sold them."

"What the fuck for? What did they do?"

"They didn't do anything. It's just how I help Gramma make ends meet. We can't get everything from magic. Magic helps us get by, but if we ever want to leave this place... live in a real house... get me into college, so I can have a good job... we need money."

Toussaint made the mistake of thinking Reggie's silence meant she was done with her questions.

"Do you think they miss us?"

Uncomfortable silence. Toussaint answered with a question. "Do you miss them?"

"Not really. Babe was an arsehole. Willie and Sandy were kinda nice, but they couldn't hold up their end of a conversation with a crane. Hank was sorta loco. But I mean... what if the people who bought them were real fuckers or something?"

"I looked for good people to buy them." It was true. Toussaint never sold to anyone who had a reputation for cruelty. But he was uncomfortably aware that there was no guarantee that they would stay with those people.

There was an even longer silence, and Toussaint feared that Reggie would ask if she was to be sold as well. That made her next question all the more surprising, putting him off balance.

"Where's my Mamá?"

"It says on your papers that you're from Los Angeles."

"So, that's where she is?"

"I figure so."

"Is that where your momma is, too?"

"Sort of... she's with... angels," he said, controlling his voice with effort. He'd paid more attention to Spanish since he'd gotten Reggie.

"Can we go there?"

"Someday. Maybe we'll go to Los Angeles," he said, carefully separating the two answers with a period that bridged infinity.

Toussaint returned to the Exchange and another small 'graduating class' of Jarveys came and went. One by one, the Jarveys from his latest batch were sold. Those who only acquired the basics of house training and whose vocabularies failed to improve after a month or so, went first...occasionally at a loss once the cost of feeding them was factored in. The ones who showed improvement were trained for a few more weeks, sometimes learning advanced tricks like handshaking or shoulder riding. These generally went for a fair sum and helped Toussaint justify continuing the operation to his grandmother.

Reggie stayed, sleeping on Toussaint's pillow and wearing a little blue collar when he took her for walks. He did the walking...she rode in his pocket. Reggie had never grown to proper Jarvey size and had told Toussaint, in no uncertain terms, that the devil would need to defrost his balls the day she would wear a leash. Each week, Toussaint found a new argument against selling her. She wasn't big enough yet (though privately he suspected that she would never grow beyond her current size, a little more than half that of a normal adult Jarvey). She was so trainable that he could sell her as a trick Jarvey for a fortune if he just taught her for a little longer; the market was bad at the moment, and he couldn't get her full price yet; he was searching for a connection who would pay the princely sum she was surely worth.

---

Reggie awoke to yet another argument between her trainer, whose name she now knew was Toussaint, and the witch he called 'Gramma.'

"Don't waste your time with classes at that crazy Muggle school."

"But I haven't got that much magic, Gramma. I'll take knowledge anywhere I can get it, even if I can't get a degree out of it."

"Your mother was the smartest person I ever knew, and it didn't do her one damn bit of good without a diploma. Without those pieces of paper, child, all the knowledge in the world won't do you any more good than it does those Jarveys."

"I know, Gramma. I want to get into one of the three universities in the country that offer both Magical and non-magical education, and that means impressing admissions people at the interviews. I don't want to be stuck in one world or the other. I'm not a Squib like Momma, and I'm going to be a real wizard, not just some home-taught voodoo priest!"

Edwina's face closed up. Without another word, she shoved her wand in her purse and headed out the door.

Toussaint realized his mistake. "Wait, Gramma! I'm sorry!" She refused to look him in the eyes as he pleaded with her. "I didn't mean it like that. I know you do real magic, not voodoo. I just don't want to let you down, like Momma did."

Edwina looked up at him and began to cry. "She never let me down. It was the whole world that let her down, sugar."

He was crying now, too. "It'll work out, Gramma. I promise."

"Well, 'till it does, there's still a restaurant in need of a cook." She gave him a kiss on the cheek and hustled off down the stairs, blowing her nose as she went.

By the time Reggie stopped pretending to be asleep, Toussaint had his saxophone out and was playing it for all he was worth. First, he played fast and angry sounds, teetering on the verge between cacophony and be-bop; then, he segued into bitter blues, and finally, forced himself back into hopeful jazz. He let the last note hang a moment before cleaning his saxophone to put away.

Toussaint read words. Reggie read moods, though she was picking up the odd written word here and there. It was time to talk to him now. "That last one was pretty damned good. What's it called?"

"'Five o'clock Jump.' The original title was 'Blueballs,' but they couldn't say that on the radio," he explained.

"I like the original name better."

Toussaint laughed. "You would!"

"Why is Gramma so pissed off at us?"

He took evasive action. "What makes you think she's mad at you, too?"

"Don't fuck with me, amigo. I can smell it." Reggie twitched her whiskers at him and waited out the inevitable sighs.

"I'm not a very powerful wizard. Gramma is sort of low on magic, and Momma was a Squib. Dad was a Muggle musician who rented a room from them. I guess I'm lucky I can do magic at all."

If I stare long enough, he'll get the hint.

Her human was well trained. It only took a few minutes of fixing her glittering eyes on him before he elaborated. "She wants me to become an apprentice to someone...maybe back in New Orleans, where she was born. I don't want to. I like school... Muggle school. And I want to go to a real Wizarding school, somewhere I can find out what sort of things an almost-Squib with a saxophone can do to be useful."

"Where is this school?"

"There are three of them, but I want to go to one in California." He took a worn postcard from the bottom of his saxophone case. Reggie gazed at trees and huge stone buildings, framed by a gate, with a bell tower adding the exclamation point to the sentence.

"Isn't that where Los Angeles is?"

"Yeah. The school is pretty far from Los Angeles, though. But I was thinking we could maybe, I don't know, perform in the magic pavilion in Central Park...you could dance and tell jokes, and I'd play the sax. We'd save up the money for the Portkey to Oakland, maybe even the beginnings of tuition money. I could go to school during the day, and we could perform at night. Maybe we could even make enough to send some back to Gramma."

Reggie wanted to return to California. She wanted to find out if her dim memories of the slightly sweet smell of gray dust under lemon trees and of Jacaranda blossoms smeared on pavement like thin purple flesh were accurate. She wanted to find out if the tang of sun, cilantro, and hot exhaust fumes in the air was really as intense as she remembered. She wanted to see the blinding colors of roses and hibiscus, which she instinctively knew bloomed there while New York was enveloped in the damp, gray, and slightly sulfurous cocoon of autumn and winter. She wanted to find out if her mother's fur was as white and soft as she remembered.

"Hell, what's stopping us? Sounds like a fucking plan."

"I... well, it's not so much a plan as a dream, I guess. I'm not really sure how it would work."

It sounded like he needed a push. "Tell me the poem about holding dreams again."

Toussaint closed his eyes and recited:

'Hold fast to dreams

For if dreams die

Life is a broken-winged bird

That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams

For when dreams go

Life is a barren field

Frozen with snow.'

"I like that poem. Guy who wrote it knew his ass from a hole in the ground, for sure."

That made Toussaint laugh. "I'm sure Mr. Hughes would be happy to know you like his work."

Reggie felt hopeful, seeing Toussaint relax. Maybe sometime soon she could get him to do something about this dream of his. "Hey, you pay the 'lectrics bill this month?"

"Yeah. Wanna watch the late movie?"

"Does a dog piss on a fireplug?"

Reggie and Toussaint spent the rest of the night laughing as Abbot tried to tell Costello 'Who's on First?'

---

Edwina always shrank when the door closed behind her.

In the restaurant, on the street, in church, her head was held high, a small hat perched defiantly upon her mass of snowy hair. She might be reduced to cooking for other wizards and witches now, but when she was sixteen she had made her debut at an Octoroon Ball. She had been groomed to be the toast of an elite segment of New Orleans' Society, one where 'pureblood' had a meaning Muggles could never imagine. She had caught a very influential eye that night. She had gone to the apartments above the ballroom with a very wealthy, very pureblooded wizard.

And then she had a baby... a baby who turned out to be a Squib.

The hell of it was that New Orleans, in its inimitably eclectic fashion, had high places in society for Squibs and bastards. It had just been her extraordinary bad fortune to associate with a wizard whose family would tolerate the latter, but not the former. She and her beautiful, magic-less daughter were unceremoniously handed a packet of Eagles and put on a train north. She had only a vague notion of New York's existence when she was sent there; all she knew was that she was being exiled into snowy winters, earth tainted by moldering bodies, and a too-fast, undignified pace of life.

Had she known that she would also be subjected to taking in Muggle musicians as lodgers, she might well have left her baby in a basket in the rushes, metaphorically speaking, and leapt into the river.

Stripped of elite manners, most of her accent, and whatever delicacy and squeamishness she may have once possessed, all Edwina Charlotte Biguenet had left was her dignity. Once she slipped into the apartment and her shoulders sagged under the weary burden of watching a century go by, even that seemed to desert her. Coming home to find that the Jarvey was still there, sleeping in her chair, was the last straw. She knew where Toussaint kept the papers for his animals. It took all of two minutes to stuff them in her purse and magically shove the Jarvey into a carrier.

---

Edwina felt even smaller than her diminutive five feet nothing in the Morningside Magical Creatures Exchange. It didn't help her self-assurance that she had forgotten to Silence the Jarvey before Apparating. Somehow, she felt too dizzy to do it now.

"Gramma, don't sell me!"

"I'm not your Gramma," she said angrily, feeling more confused by the minute. "Toussaint bought you to sell, and that's what's going to happen to you."

"Fuck that! He's my only friend in the world!"

"If he's your friend, you go along! He's always telling me you're worth a fortune...don't you know what kind of life he can buy for himself if he has the money?"

"We had a plan, damn it! We were going to perform together...we would raise money for his dream!"

"Dreams don't fill your belly or pay the rent. He'll have plenty of time to dream when he's got a roof over his head that doesn't leak."

The voice of the animal in the carrier grew soft, but it managed to pierce Edwina's ears and land uncomfortably close to her heart:
'What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up

like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore--

And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?

Or crust and sugar over--

like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags

like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?'

"You talk too much," Edwina muttered.

Someone called out the closing time for the market. She tried desperately to remember what Toussaint had said about where he got the best prices. Was it the exporters? That sounded right. Now to catch them before they left.

One wizard stood out among the exporters, his hair as silver as that of the Jarvey she was selling, his eyes very nearly as pale. He seemed as good a place to start as any. She approached him in a fair imitation of her debutante walk, unused for nearly a century.

"I have a Jarvey to sell," Edwina said, holding her head high and cradling the carrier as if it were a bouquet.

"I only deal in trained animals," the wizard said. His accent was British and his tone was dismissive.

"This animal is trained. She is a fully pedigreed, highly trained trick Jarvey. Don't let her size mislead you. My grandson knows his business." Edwina offered Reggie's papers as evidence, barely concealing her relief when the man deigned to look at them... barely concealing her embarrassment when he tested them not once, but three times, for authenticity.

"It's plainly a runt. I'll give you twenty five Eagles, assuming it actually speaks."

"You fucking MORON! I'm worth four times that! Chingate!" Reggie spewed filth at the man, mortifying Edwina and amusing the passersby with the creativity of her insults.

"Your boy is a dab hand at training these things, isn't he," the dealer said dryly.

"He trained her to recite Shakespeare," Edwina said, pulling shreds of dignity around her as an inadequate shield against sarcasm. "He can't help it if the beast has a mind of its own."

The buyer drew his wand to Stupefy Reggie, but she dodged the spell and screamed desperately at Edwina again. "If you're going to sell my ass, at least get what I'm worth so Toussaint can have his dream!"

"She says she's worth four times that...not a Denta under one hundred Eagles," Edwina said. Chin up; steady... steady. Strains of a waltz played in the back of her mind as she called upon her memories of the Crescent City's royalty to buoy her up.

Whatever disdainful remark the man was going to make was cut off by words ringing forth from the carrier:

'No more be grieved at that which thou hast done:

Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud;

Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun,

And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud.

All men make faults, and even I in this,

Authorizing thy trespass with compare,

Myself corrupting, salving thy amiss,

Excusing thy sins more than thy sins are;

For to thy sensual fault I bring in sense...

Thy adverse party is thy advocate...

And 'gainst myself a lawful plea commence:

Such civil war is in my love and hate

That I an accessory needs must be

To that sweet thief which sourly robs from me.'

In the silence that followed, he counted out one hundred Eagles, took Reggie's papers, had Edwina sign a document which he magically copied, and transferred his prize to a locked cage.

"The market is closing in ten minutes!"

Wizards and animals scrambled like ants in a broken nest. Feeling as if her purse was weighted down with blood money, Edwina fought her way to the entry of the building and Disapparated.

Back in the apartment, Edwina felt dizzy. She clutched at the table. Need to Apparate more often to stay in practice, she thought, just before all her thoughts dissolved in a chaotic jumble. By the time she crashed to the floor, her body was too numb to feel the impact.

Through a rapidly graying world, she saw but did not hear Toussaint open the door and scream. But she tried, before the world went altogether dark, to tell him what she and the little beast had done for him.

---

"GRAMMA!"

Edwina's skin was dead gray and cooling, and Toussaint wasted precious minutes chaffing her leaden wrists, only to hear her slur something that sounded like, "'sappens twa dream'ferred."

In desperation, he snatched her purse from the table and rushed to the pay telephone in the hallway. His fingers shook as he fumbled with the contents of the bag in a confused attempt to find Muggle change and dial at the same time. He almost dropped the receiver when it finally registered in his mind that the reason it had been so hard to find a dime was that the purse was stuffed with Eagles.

He sat on the floor beside Gramma and counted them in the eternity it took for an ambulance to arrive. Fifteen Lunitas... seven Dentas... a dollar and sixty-five cents in Muggle money. And one hundred Eagles.

One hundred Eagles.

And... a copy of a bill of sale... from the Morningside Magical Creatures Exchange. Signed by Gramma, acknowledging she'd been paid in full by the exporter.

Which all had to be swept back into the purse when the bored-looking ambulance attendants came to the door, searched for Edwina's pulse, said a few perfunctory things about elderly people and sudden strokes, and offered to take her body to the morgue.

Every step Toussaint jogged towards the docks, he was sure he would burst open. The jarring would shoot up through the worn rubber soles of his shoes, jolt into his belly, burst it, and cause the despair and bitterness roiling within to pour out onto the pavement. His thoughts whirled in painful confusion, blinding him to the streetlights flickering on late. Why wouldn't Gramma work with me more, so I could learn to Apparate? Why am I such a pathetic almost-Squib that I haven't learned to do it? Why was I at that fucking class when I should have been home, keeping Gramma from selling off my best friend and then dying on me? Can I find the right ship, and will whoever bought Reggie give her to me and take this fucking money back?

The river... the river was ahead. He didn't begin to know where to look. He ran along the water's edge and screamed, regardless of the strange looks and rude remarks from the longshoremen.

"REGGIE!"

He could have sworn he heard Reggie's voice. But as he called and called and no further sounds were forthcoming, he concluded he must have imagined it. He didn't realize that there were more ships docked there than could be seen. Cloaked in such glamours that not even wizards could watch them sink into the deep, the huge bubbles and the massive sucking sound that marked their strange form of Disapparation went unnoticed.

---

Toussaint went to the preacher to make arrangements for Gramma's funeral. Will it cost five Lunitas... or Eagles... to preach Gramma to her grave? he thought disjointedly. She wouldn't want even one 'fine' Muggle car involved... wish I could find enough tears to make it grand... He agreed when the preacher suggested cremation and interment in the Poor Wizards' Vault in Hamilton Heights, remembering something about the dead being buried above ground in New Orleans, where Gramma had been born. He could feel himself nodding in all the right places, saying all the right words as the older man prayed, but aside from that, he felt nothing. Maybe it was too soon to feel anything. Maybe it was too late.

He returned home, only to realize... it wasn't, anymore. Gramma and Reggie had made it home. With just himself there, it was only a couple of cheap rooms that only Cooling and Warming Charms saved from being an unlivable oven in summer and an icy deathtrap in winter.

'sappens twa dream'ferred...

What... happens... to a dream deferred?

Gramma had never liked 'modern' poetry. Reggie was the only one in the house who shared his admiration for Langston Hughes. For Gramma to have quoted that poem... Reggie must have spoken to her. The word 'sacrifice' stabbed his brain, but he shook it off, trying to cling to the numbness now. Gramma was with Momma now; they wouldn't blame him if he left others to see to the funeral. Reggie was... he couldn't quite bear to think of that.

He dragged the musty carpetbag from the top shelf of the closet. Gramma had brought it up from New Orleans decades ago, and it smelled of mothballs and old magic. His clothes and toothbrush he tossed in carelessly; Gramma's wand and the family Bible (he checked to make sure the faded photos were still safely in the back) were tucked into the bottom with reverence. He finally decided to add Shakespeare's Sonnets to the top of the scanty pile of possessions, not certain he'd ever read them again. It seemed unfaithful to do so without Reggie.

As he was picking up his saxophone case, the handle broke. He very nearly kicked the thing across the room in frustration; he stopped himself just in time with a massive pulse of self-control. Aside from one creased photo in the back of Gramma's Bible, the instrument and its worn case was his one reminder of his father. He didn't think he could live with himself if he wrecked it.

Now the tears came, and the guilt that he couldn't find them sooner.

"How the hell am I supposed to fix this thing?" There was no way the ragged case would respond to another 'Reparo'. Then, his eyes fell on a little scrap of blue leather...Reggie's collar. It was strange to pick it up. He almost expected to feel a physical pain upon touching the thing, but all he felt was suede on one side and pebbly grain on the other. He couldn't quite see the little 'R' he'd magicked on to the nickel-plate buckle through the blurriness in his eyes, but he could feel it. Somehow, it was as reassuring as it was painful.

"I guess you're coming along after all, Reggie," he said softly, and carefully Charmed the little bit of blue leather into the place of the broken handle. Instrument case in one hand and bag tucked under the same arm (it wouldn't do to occupy his wand hand late at night, especially since he still had the rest of Reggie's price on him), he left the apartment.

---

A blue suede handle on a black leather saxophone case in the middle of Penn Station was not the most monumental of discrepancies. But he was the sort of man who noticed such things.

From the handle, he went to noticing the case. Looked like it had been around the world by owl relay a couple of times, through storms all the way. Except when it was being drop kicked along by angry trolls.

From the case, he went to noticing the man carrying it. Just barely a man, but he had that look on his face of not being a child anymore. That young face didn't fit the old case, or the even older bag. All of it reeked of being held together by magic and a few fervent prayers. Heirlooms, then. And the boy was a wizard, or wanted to be one. Once he'd sensed the aura of magic about the objects, he noticed the outline of a wand in the young man's pocket. It helped that he touched it every so often for reassurance, probably not as casually as he would have liked.

"Which Portkey you taking?"

The younger man almost jumped, but not quite. "Oakland. Then over to Berkeley."

The man nodded at the case. "Got a gig?"

A shake of the head. "I'm hoping to raise tuition money."

"That's ambitious, without a gig. Can you play that thing, or is it just your security blanket?"

Utterly unselfconscious, the young man set down his burdens and pulled out the sax. A few tweaks and a wipe from the rag in the corner of the box, and suddenly, the air was filled with the essence of melancholy so pure, it was beautiful.

Passengers stopped and stared, oblivious to their trains or Portkeys being announced. Conversations faltered and died. Magic-using passengers reached for their wands, uncertain if this was spelled music. Then, they just let themselves be caught up and listen.

The young man lowered the instrument from his lips. After a few moments of utter silence, people shook themselves and clapped. Again, without the least indication of nervousness, the sax player gave a little bow and put away his instrument.

"What do you call that?"

"'Goodbye, Reggie.'"

"Here's my card, son. You've got a gig. If you still want to spend the rest of your time on school and your money on paying for it, you'd best learn Healing Music. Anything else would be a waste."

---

The smells of thousands of magical beasts, Muggle chemicals, rust, salt, and dead fish made Reggie sick and dizzy. No doubt the thought of leaving Toussaint behind would have left her just as ill had she been riding first class in a jet plane, but she convinced herself that she was glad to make the sacrifice for him, and everything would be better as soon as she left this wretched hole.

"REGGIE!"

Somehow, over the creaking of cranes, shrieking of seagulls, yelling men and grinding, whining gears, Reggie heard him. "HERE!" she shrieked. "Toussaint, I'm in here!" To hell with sacrifice. They would take the money and Gramma with them on the run. Frantic to reach him, she began worrying the latch with her teeth. They'd put an especially good lock on the cage, but Reggie was an especially clever Jarvey. She knew that if she could get her teeth into the right places, the thing should spring open.

Just as the lock shivered and seemed to give slightly, the magic kicked in and she, the cage, and everything around them spun away from there.

---

Author's Notes:

Spanish Vocabulary

(I know, if you've been following the series, you know these by now...but if there are any new riders on the rollercoaster...in which case, you should be reading the other stories first, chronology notwithstanding)

Los Angeles: The Angels. (The full name of the original Spanish settlement was 'El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de Los Angeles del Rio Porciuncula,' which translates as 'Town of Our Lady, Queen of Angels, of the River Porciuncula.' In other words, the city is named after Mary, not the angels; but this technicality was forgotten, so far as I can tell, approximately fifteen minutes after the settlement was named.)

Amigo: friend (masculine)

Chingate: fuck you (one of Reggie's all-time favorite expressions) especially when combined with...

Hombron: big bully

I figured it was only fair to mention a wealthy Wizarding family in New York...the Slades...as well as the standard-issue Rockefellers. (If you've done your required reading for this one, you might remember Leocadia Slade from 'The Fairy God-Jarvey's Apprentice.') For the record, the Slades made their fortune in the wizarding world's entertainment industry.

Morningside Heights roughly marks the southern border of Harlem in New York City. (Thanks to Wikipedia for a handy map that confirmed that these places were exactly where I thought they were.)

The baseball players Toussaint named his last batch of Jarveys after are Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth, Sandy Koufax, Willie Mays, and Reggie Jackson.

125th street (where Toussaint and Edwina lived) is today called Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. and more or less marks the boundary of an area called Manhattanville. The Apollo Theater, The Theresa Hotel, and Langston Hughes' home are on or near 125th. Edwina and Toussaint are no doubt arguing about the City College of New York, located north of 125th street on Amsterdam Avenue. In the 1950s, it was infamously radical, and Edwina would have certainly formed her own negative opinions about it during that time period...just as she'd been forming opinions about everything in New York since approximately the 1870s.

The poems 'Dreams' and 'A Dream Deferred' are by Langston Hughes. Toussaint is mentally paraphrasing the Langston Hughes poem 'Night Funeral in Harlem' when he visits the preacher.

Abbot and Costello performed the 'Who's on First?' sketch many times throughout their career...always from memory, often improvising new bits on the spot. I'm assuming that Reggie was exposed to it in a late night showing of 'The Naughty Nineties,' the film in which they performed what is considered the definitive version of that legendary routine.

Reggie recites Shakespeare's 35th Sonnet to the exporter...simultaneously sealing the deal on her own sale and forgiving Edwina.

Reggie isn't your run of the mill Jarvey...obviously. If you're thinking the details of this story make it sound like she is very old, indeed, for an animal (even a magical one) by the time she meets Severus and Hermione...you're absolutely right.

Up next: Reggie makes friends in low places.