Готовый перевод Тейлор Поттер и философский виал / Taylor Potter and the Philosophical Vial: Глава 7. Последствия и решения

Chapter 7. Consequences and Solutions
* * *

The next day, Amy and Lisa went to the infirmary to visit Taylor and the others. The first person they saw when they entered was Doctor Pomfrey, in her signature white coat.

"Drink the potion," she coaxed Justin Flint, holding a flask of orange liquid towards him, "you'll feel better right away!"

"I'm good," Justin tried to move away.

Lisa nudged Amy on the side and pointed to the corner. While the Doctor was busy with her favorite activity and oblivious, the friends slipped over to Taylor. She was playing Quidditch chess with Eric and Crystal and was already looking pretty good, at least compared to her post-match state. It should be noted that Taylor was incredibly lucky; Sprout's battle tree was directly above her and therefore didn't attack Potter, who was caught in a sort of "blind spot."

"So what happened at the very end?" Eric asked, lowering his voice. "Everyone here was knocked out even earlier, and the Doctor isn't telling."

"The tree was chopped down and burned; it made a great bonfire. Professor Sprout sat off to the side and cried like a baby. Lisa grinned. "The Eidolorin suits are beyond repair, the Quidditch pitch is in shambles, and it's unclear how long it will take to restore the systems."

“It's bad,” Eric sighed sadly.

"Everyone is indignant, outraged by the match, and..." Lisa hesitated, looking at Taylor, "you won't like it, but everyone thinks that it was you who summoned the tree and wanted to kill the Eidolorin players."

"Me?" Taylor asked, mildly surprised.

"For losing and all that, like with the cat and Filch," Lisa nodded, looking at Taylor.

\\She knows something, something happened during the match, something she considers important. She doesn't want to talk about it in front of Eric and Crystal, but she wants to tell us. This knowledge pertains to information about the Secret Dimension. She considers this knowledge important, believing she's unlocked the secret of this year's mysteries.

"Okay," Lisa smiled, "Doctor Granger will take care of everything now. And yes, Taylor... don't go anywhere, okay?"

Taylor grimaced, and Lisa gave her a final wink and went to Doctor Pomfrey. Taking her aside, Lisa quickly fed her a mixture of lies and truths: that the students thought Taylor was guilty when she wasn't, that they were planning a sneak attack, and that it would be better to discharge Potter before anything bad happened. After all, outside the infirmary, Taylor would no longer be the Doctor's responsibility, and the young prodigy Amy Weasley would help with the treatment and help convince a couple of young capes to take Pomfrey's potions and extracts.

The final argument settled the matter, and Taylor left the infirmary. Of course, she, like everyone else, was still reeling from what had happened yesterday, but… Doctor Pomfrey was very fond of treating and administering various potions of her own making to the students, keeping them in the infirmary as long as possible under various pretexts, even after they had fully recovered. Therefore, the students meticulously monitored their health, followed all the recommended procedures, and feared the dark-skinned Pomfrey in her lab coat more than most professors. Those currently in the infirmary also quietly envied Brad Bletchley and Dennis Spinet, who were unharmed because they had sat out the entire match at the team bases, guarding the flags.

So when the friends left the medical center, Taylor spoke sincerely.

"Thank you, Lisa, I owe you!"

"What else are friends for?" Granger smiled broadly. "Let's find a quiet spot?"

"Just not a shower," Amy protested, wiping her hands on her suit. "And you owe me for Eidolorin's treatment!"

Lisa merely smiled mysteriously and waved her hand toward the main exit of the school. They had to pass through the main building and the courtyard, climb up and down several floors, and Amy muttered something under her breath. Granger looked at her.

||She regrets the impossibility of flying in Wormwarts, the inability to create a mountable ABC, and the need to go somewhere. She regrets having to go somewhere, doesn't want to go, and wishes this whole thing had never happened. She wishes this story hadn't happened; she wishes he could go back to his first year.

There were conclusions to be drawn from this, and Lisa decided it was time to force the issue and clear up some questions. But first, of course, she'd have to hear what Taylor had to say. Potter walked ahead, slightly hunched over, as if preparing to hunker down and hide from everyone.

"Malfoy shouted at me, 'Don't go anywhere!'" Taylor declared as soon as the friends left Wormwarts.

"And Eidolorin's team acquired Tinker suits," Lisa responded thoughtfully.

"See! It all fits together!" Taylor clapped her hands as they descended toward the lake. "Heirs to Eidolon's power, of course, the helmet will direct them to Eidolon, and that phrase that kept coming up, and the Tinker suits, and the feud with Malfoy last year, it all fits!"

"This is just your guess, Taylor, but..."

"But we were still planning on raiding, weren't we?" Taylor interrupted.

"On Snape."

"Why is Eidolorin worse?"

"Wait, let's clarify this," Lisa stopped and looked around.

"There's no one," Taylor said impatiently, "except underwater."

"Do you think Max Malfoy is the Dark Cape and the heir to the Eidolon's power?"

"Yes!"

"Don't forget that Amy just touched him," Lisa smirked.

"Hey, you set this whole thing up!" Amy exclaimed.

"What are you trying to say?" Taylor looked at Granger suspiciously.

She gazed into the dark waters of the lake, as if deciding whether her purple suit matched them or not. Then Lisa shook her ash-blond locks and exhaled.

"So, look, Eidolon wrote that only the heirs to his power could open the Dimension of Secrets, right? What was Eidolon's power? It was that he had several powers at once and could change them at will. Now, Eden de Wald opened the Dimension, and she was a Dark Cape. You know what they call Dark Capes?"

"Bad capes?" Taylor frowned, clearly uncomfortable with this conversation.

Amy didn't seem particularly pleased either, but Lisa decided the matter was too important to continue with all these concealments and omissions. Especially after such intimate moments as yesterday's match, which nearly cost Taylor her life. You could talk all you wanted about security systems, ejection systems, and so on, but the combat tree definitely had no limitations.

"That too, but why bad ones?" Lisa asked, then immediately began answering. "Everything is connected here. Dark capes — those who have gathered a great deal of power within and take it from those around them, and they are 'dark' to prophets and clairvoyants. The same effect as Eidolon, although weaker, it must be admitted."

"How did you know all this?" Taylor asked. "Oh, right..."

"Binns, of course. You wouldn't believe," Lisa smiled, "how much you can learn from open sources if you know what you're looking for! So, this multitude of powers is gradually driving the Dark Capes mad, or at least awakening an unintelligent thirst for conflict. We can barely cope with just one power here, even after training, but they have so many of them, you see?"

"Listen, Lisa, you need to be more careful with these hacks," Taylor said worriedly. "If you get caught, a week of detention won't get you off!"

"I have a couple of ideas on that matter," Lisa assured her, "and I'm not prying unless necessary. It's just that we constantly have questions that a regular library wouldn't cover. So what was I talking about? Oh, yes, Dark Capes and what defines their essence. Tell me, Amy, is Max Malfoy a Dark Cape?"

"No," Amy replied, blinking in surprise. "So that's why you organized the treatment?"

"It's not out of sympathy for this pureblood fan," Lisa chuckled. "What about Taylor?"

"What about Taylor?"

"Taylor - Dark Cape?"

Lisa stared at Amy, her superpower fully activated. Yes, that was it, the thing that had been troubling Amy, along with Jack Quirrell's words about the brain's effects. Amy feared she'd have to "cure" Taylor when she began to transform, and that would send Amy spiraling downwards and into villainy. There was something else, a mixture of thoughts and emotions, fear and hope, that Lisa found as difficult to read as a clairvoyant could predict the actions of the Dark Ones.

“What?” Taylor asked, confused. “Amy? Amy?”

"I don't know, do you understand?!" Weasley exploded, jumping up. "I don't know. But there's something there... dark, somewhere far and deep, and I don't want to talk about it! I don't want to mess with your heads, because it's... it's..."

She fell and burst into tears, and Lisa exchanged glances with Taylor, who helplessly threw up her hands, and then turned around sharply, but instantly relaxed.

"What are you shouting about? You'll scare all my dogs away!" Rachel Hagrid's displeased voice rang out from above the dog.

She jumped off Fang, walked over to Amy, lifted her, and threw her over her shoulder.

"Good food and good drink cure all ills. Sit down," she ordered.

They returned after dark, having lingered late with Hagrid, who was in surprisingly good spirits. She even called her friends "little puppies" a couple of times, affectionately. Amy, who had been stuffed with a triple portion of food, had no strength to mourn and merely burped drowsily. Remembering the events of the previous year, the friends abruptly refused to drink, but Rachel drank anyway, muttering something about discounts for victims.

As the friends entered the main school building, the lights flickered and went out, and a crackling and rustling sound came from somewhere.

"Like a horror movie," Lisa said, hiccupping. "Taylor?"

"Yes?"

"Do you see a face somewhere?"

"No,” Taylor’s voice was focused, “but there’s definitely something moving around.”

"Then we'd better get going too," Amy said fearfully.

There was a crash, then a scream, and Potter pulled out her baton and began summoning insects. The light came back on.

"It's L33t!" Taylor exclaimed, stepping forward.

The Tinker and Eidolorin team player lay in the middle of the hallway, beaten again, only this time unconscious. Before Taylor could wonder where L33t had come from, he wasn't even there just yet, everything went wrong.

"She did it again!!!" came a shout. "Look!"

Taylor turned around. One of Alexanclaw's students was pointing a finger at her. She took a step, and the student stumbled, falling backward.

"She didn't finish him off on the field, and now she's back to finish him off while no one's looking!" the student yelled as he ran away.

Taylor only sighed after him, knowing it was futile to try to dissuade him. The cape, overcome with terror and fear, was no longer able to contain its power, and the walls around it were covered in frost. Taylor tried to catch it with a web, but her screams brought another dozen Legendpuff students to the scene, and she had to abandon the idea.

“There’s nothing to be afraid of here,” Lisa muttered under her breath, “as if we’ve never been involved in conflicts or fought.”

"You're okay!" Victoria swooped in like a hurricane. "I looked for you everywhere and couldn't find you! I was so worried about you!"

Victoria hugged Taylor tightly. She soared to catch Potter's eye, and Amy suddenly felt a pang of fear. What if something dark and hidden within Taylor were to burst forth at this very moment, in flight... Amy shook her head, pushing away the idiotic thoughts.

"Well, well," Filch's raspy voice rang out from behind him. "Of course it's Potter, Granger, and Weasley, and of course you're innocent?"
* * *

November dragged on, and Taylor felt like a fly caught in a web, thrashing about in a helpless attempt to escape. Students, even classmates, whispered behind her back and scattered, adopting a policy of ignoring Taylor, saying that if you didn't talk to her, she wouldn't get angry or attack, and so on. It was all stupid, and it tempted them to attack them all at once, but the students didn't seem to understand this. Even the fact that Taylor hadn't been at fault for what had happened during the match, the attack on the Elite had never been proven, and Hagrid and her friends had stood up for her, didn't help.

Amy and Lisa suffered less, but they still suffered, and as a result, the three friends essentially withdrew into their own circle. This was further exacerbated by the intense preparations for the upcoming raid on Eidolorin, which they had decided to conduct during the holidays. Things were difficult with the Quidditch team; Taylor constantly felt like her teammates were silently blaming her for her losses, and the other teams were criticizing her for completely unnecessary cruelty.

Victoria's support was all the more valuable to Taylor, even though she continued to display inappropriate fangirl fervor. Her warmth and admiration helped Taylor maintain her composure, and she felt herself growing increasingly attached to her younger sister, Amy, with each passing day. Amy herself would grumble and frown, but then Taylor would hug her, and her friend would seem to thaw, no longer angry.

The fact that the attacks had stopped (L33t, like Filch, hadn't seen who had attacked him) also complicated the situation, as the students saw this as confirmation of their theory: "Don't anger Potter, and she won't attack!" Eidolorin's team, however, still wanted to attack to avenge L33t, but it didn't work out. The elfs swooped in and ended up drenching everyone in foam, so Eidolorin's revenge could be expected. Later, when they came up with and executed their plan, Eidolorin had plenty of Thinkers, too.

"I think we'll beat them to it," Granger grinned, reassuring her friends.

Taylor sniffled and thought about how she would gladly punch someone in the face, legally.

The lessons grew more challenging, and Taylor dove headfirst into them. As McGonagall had promised, the subjects were interconnected. In Accords, the students, split into groups, drew up projects and plans, leading their "gangs" to success and prosperity (Flitwick, looking up at the students and rubbing his small hands, promised that next year they would plan for the heroes, and then they would understand a lot), with the ultimate goal of seizing power over the city. In Snape's classes, they waged an information war between their gangs, with Thomas playing the main villain, ruining everything for everyone. Information leaks, rumors, setups, embedded informants for the authorities and the heroes, and so on. Her gardening with Sprout, in addition to cultivating combat bushes (Amy's bush was already perched on her shoulder, its branches gently stroking her hair), was accompanied by a study of urban and suburban plants, their characteristics, and their use in gang warfare. Hannah, while focusing on pistols, didn't forget to lecture on the weapons used in gang clashes and analyze what was done wrong and why.

Missy Sinistra taught the basics of urban survival, in addition to the core curriculum, while Niceguy Lockhart simply orchestrated those "gang" skirmishes, imparting group skills and team building. Jess Binns, admittedly, didn't teach them the history of street gangs, but in class, the young capes explored and analyzed the events of World War I, from the perspective of both humans and parahumans with superpowers. And everyone gave them so much homework that they felt compelled not to eat, drink, or sleep, just to keep on doing their homework and yearly projects.

Not to mention preparing for the raid.

On December 20th, Lisa gathered everyone for a conversation near one of Sprout's greenhouses.

"So, let's recap," she said. "The last week of school, and the students will be leaving for the holidays, but we'll be staying behind. Amy?"

"Your information turned out to be correct. Carol really is seeing someone, so Mom sent her an email calling her home. Crystal and Eric are going with her, unable to pass up such a chance to take it out on our older sister, the bore and Prefect. I wrote a letter about needing to support you, Taylor.” Amy gently patted her friend on the shoulder, “and Mom understood. Victoria wrote the same letter, though, so she's staying too."

Lisa, who was watching the stroking scene with a smirk, assured her friends:

"Oh, I have a couple of ideas about that, but we'll have to wait until the holidays. Taylor?"

"The bookmarks are made, the markers are applied, the beetles and spiders are multiplying rapidly," Potter began listing, counting off her fingers. "There are mechanical locks in a couple of places, and my insects won't be able to get through them; we'll need a Brute to open them."

“More likely, break it, and we don’t need to leave any traces,” Lisa answered thoughtfully.

She pushed the hand-drawn diagram towards Taylor.

"Show me exactly where it is, and I'll see what I can do about it. I'll also need your tablets."

"Both?"

"Both," Lisa nodded. "Or do you think we wasted so much time and effort drawing everything on paper and avoiding electronic means? Alienating the students also benefits us, so I didn't interfere and start counter-rumors or provoke a fight with Eidolorin in front of everyone."

“So I suffered…,” Taylor jumped up angrily.

“Not in vain,” Lisa interrupted her.

"Suffered?" Amy asked, suddenly surprised.

"Did I look like I was having fun?" Taylor asked back.

Amy looked embarrassed, but Lisa smiled even wider.

"We'll have answers to our questions soon! Unless, of course, something completely unexpected happens," Granger added thoughtfully, glancing slyly at her friends. "We'll begin tomorrow; the first stage needs to be completed while the students are still in school."
* * *

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