#last apprentice

So, this is a theory that I've been thinking about for a while, and I'd like to hear what you folks think.

The topic of when the books take place has long been one that troubles me. The background of witch trials screams 16th/17th century, but the continued prevalence of what seems to be the Catholic Church in fantasy Lancashire makes that unlikely Equally, it can't be much earlier as the existence of potatoes as a common food item shows that it takes place after the European discovery of the Americas. You must admit, it is strange.

However, I suggest that, rather than the past, the books take place in the future. A distant, post-apocalyptic future to be specific. Not only does this take care of certain historical inconsistencies in the series, but it also explains a few things. For one thing the fact that ice ages seem to be common knowledge, and the notion of the Segantii as a sophisticated precursor civilisation, the real Segantii were a Celtic tribe of no known great advancement.

And, the biggest bit of evidence, to quote 'then the ice came again, and when it retreated, even the shapes of the hills and the names of the towns in the valleys were changed'. Or to put it another way, after an ice age, and we know that the events of the books take place after Golgoth's last outing, the shapes of the hills, including Pendle Hill, which currently is far too steep to climb as easily as the characters in the books are able to*, and the names of towns, like Chippenden or as we call it Chipping, changed.

Now, granted, this idea cuts both ways, the events of the books could also occur in the distant past, a forgotten past. However, the existence of the Greek gods as Old Gods, and knowledge of Greek myth, would dispute this, as, indeed, does the presence of potatoes.

Finally, the clincher, throughout all his life Joseph Delaney was always unwilling to confirm that the books take place in the 1700s, as is often believed. Now, it may be that he considered the events of his books to take place in a fantasy timeline entirely separate to our own, but - again - the 'then the ice came again...' seems to tie the books firmly to the world we know.

Patrick Arrasmith

I don’t own the Wardstone Chronicles. 

Tom/Alice HP au: Tom is the Hufflepuff who is ready to punch your teeth out every time you insult one of his friends. Alice is the slytherin girl everyone fears that no one knows is hiding a lot of pain. They should not be friends. Alice’s cruel mother Lizzie would not allow it. There are whispers and suspicions and people thinking they can tell them that their friendship won’t end well. They become best friends anyways.

Warnings: slight violence , bit of bullying , unicorn is harmed.

The way they met could have been a prophecy about what their friendship would be like.

When he had calmly said “ I am not doing your homework, but I am willing to help if you need it” the bully had been appropriately bull-like in her response. Slammed a fist into the wall next to his head. And when he had merely smiled patiently and friendly at her, she had drawn her wand, muttered a spell and next thing he knew his books were flying through the air and some of them were exploding ( judging by the way her eyes widened and she stared at the book seconds away from exploding above her head, he guessed that was an accident).

Considering he had only thrown himself against her to protect her from the debris, he really thought using Accio on him was a little .. unfair.  He was just in the middle of explaining this amidst still-exploding books and flying torn pages when he was suddenly dropped.

Two seconds later, a fist collided with a nose and there was an audible crk! He tried to catch the underfed girl , but she weakly pushed him away. She swayed and glared, one hand pressed to her nose. He thought the glare looked oddly terrified.

Then he turned and he realized why;

Brown hair, brown eyes, dagger-smile, bloody knuckles and very pretty. She stalked over to the bully- who tried to make herself tall but whose trembling legs wouldn’t quite let her which was peculiar- and calmly picked up the wand that had fallen.

She twirled it between her fingers. “ This yours?”.

“ Yeah. So give it back, you-  “ it sounded lacklustre, her voice far more timid than it been when she had spewed insults at him.

“ I would have a little more respect, if I were you”. She yanked her head towards him. “ Why you bothering him”.

“ I was politely asking him to help me a little, but the snob didn’t want to” he almost reached for her when he realized her eyes were tearing up.

He also wanted to ask the girl whether she was okay: she looked oddly pale. You couldn’t lose that much blood because of a bleeding nose, right? He had never felt dizzy or weak like this girl seemed to after a bleeding nose.

He stepped forward when his mysterious saviour pushed the wand against where a pulse was jumping. “ I am going to help you too. Do you like escargots? “.

“ Wh-“ the girl’s voice wavered and broke at the second letter. “ What dumb made-up thing is that?” .

The girl was pulling back with a smirk when he grabbed her wrist. “Don’t!”

She arched an eyebrow. “ You protecting her?”.

“ It is not like she was hurting me. Really, it is all mild inconvenience”.

She rolled her eyes, but there was a nicer smile than earlier starting at her lips. “ Hufflepuffs” she scoffed, lowered her wand just the tiniest bit. “Honestly”.

“You know, other people than hufflepuffs can think beating people up is an awful thing to do”.

“ Well, how many would protect their bullies” he smiles when she draws the wand away from the still slightly trembling girl, points it at him. “ That. Is a Hufflepuff thing”.

He swirls around at the sound of footsteps, stepping forward as he sees her stumble and glance backwards – most would look at the scar beneath her eyes, but he mostly notes the terror in green eyes. He quickly grabs the wand his helper is still playing with, ignoring her ‘he! I fairly stole that” doesn’t even bother pointing out that you cannot ‘fairly’ steal something and runs after the injured girl.

“Wait! We have still got your wand” he yells, waving it.

She doesn’t turn around again, and he has to give up after nearly tripping on his robes. He jogs back to face her smirking face, that eyebrow pulled up again. “ No such luck, prince Arthur?”.

“ Prince Arthur?”.

“ Yeah, because you are all noble and nice and insufferable” she says it with a scowl and eyerolls.

He grins at her. “ Thanks. I think I like ‘noble and nice and insufferable’

She gives a small smile back, places the wand in a bag attached to her hip. Then offers him her hand. “ Alice”.

He grabs her hand. It is rougher than expected.  “You really shouldn’t have punched her, but thank you Alice” he nods at the green-silver bag around her hip.  “and we really need to return the wand”.

“ If you win a duel, the wand is yours”.

He frowns.  “That constitutes a fair duel, where you use magic. Not sneaking up on someone and punching them”.

She shrugs. “ Taking from a bad person doesn’t count”

He starts to pick up the books that are not only smoking half- words like pot and snake ta and boi. Alice keeps standing , then slowly sinks on her knees to help him.

“ I think she is just struggling with the subject. And even if she was like Vol- hmmm” he discovers she has cold hands when she pretty much jumps on his back and presses her hands on his mouth.  

“ Don’t speak that name, ever. Are you a knucklehead?”.

“Hmm mm hm “he says in reply.

She slowly retracts her hands, studies him. “ Don’t say it or I will curse your lips shut “ she threatens.

He blinks. “ Why did you – “.

“ You wanna invite him here?”.

“ Professor Dumbledore says that fear of a name- “.

She rolls her eyes. “ I know what beardie says”.

“ Besides, is he not like- “.

“ Yes” she suddenly looks uncomfortable. “ But still”

She gets her own wand out – he tries not to stare ( the man at the store told him every wand chooses the wizard, that your wand tells something about you) – then mutters something. There is some sort of whirlwind around them, her hair slapping against his cheek and his own obscuring his sight. He can hear papers flapping, then thuk! As something falls.

When he opens his eyes, his books are whole again and on a pile. She gestures her wand lazily at thm and they start to float. She is still kneeling, hair all tangled up, and gives him that small smile again. She playfully pushes him.  “So where to, Arthur?”.

“ I was going to the library. You want to come? “.

“ Eh might as well” she grins, but there is something in her eyes that makes it hard to believe that grin. “ Has been some times since I pissed Prince off. Have to keep her on her toes”.

“ Please do not terrorize mrs Prince. She is really nice”.

She does this thing a lot, he has notice, where she scowls or rolls her eyes but gives a smile at the same time.  She does it now.  “Hufflepuff”.

“Is being nice such a bad thing?”.

She shrugs. They walk in companionable silence for a while. He is glancing at her when he sees it: the red still on her knuckles. She sputters a “what the Azkaban are you doing- “.

He quickly wipes the blood of with a handkerchief, then pulls his wand out and lets it hover above the grazes on her knuckles. He looks back up at her. “ Healing spells. They were the first ones I learned”.

He lets go of her hand – ‘finally’ she scoffs but she does that smiling thing again- then grins at her again. He is determined to get a grin or even a laugh from her. Eventually. He has patience.

“ Figures. Well, thank you Arthur”.

Before he can walk the last few metres to the library, she grabs his shoulder and pulls gently to make him stop and turn. “ What is your actual name? “ she snorts.  “ don’t tell me it is actually Arthur”.

He offers her his hand. “ I have already done that , prince-boy” . He keeps his hand there, smiles.  “You have to shake hands when you offer your name”.

‘ You are just going to stand there until I do it, ain’t you? “.

When he remains silent, she shrugs and shakes his hand again. “ Tom”.

“ Tom” she lets go of his hand, opens the door before he can get to it. Rolls her eyes. “ I can open my own door, Arthur. No need to be all knight-ly”.

“ I thought you didn’t want to call me Arthur anymore?”.

She throws that smile over her shoulder. “ Nah, suits you”. She nudges him. “ prince-boy”.

She does not really study, instead preferring to watch him study and tease him and make random objects in the room fly (until mrs Prince glances their way, which is when you hear a suspicious thk! And she shows a lot of teeth). They talk while he works - although she keeps trying to steal his book and make the questions for him so they can do something ‘more fun’- and although she is tight-lipped about her family, but she can be cajoled into talking about a variety of subjects. They talk about Merlin- he was a slytherin you know- and transfiguration and merpeople and acromantula’s until mrs Prince is marching over , barking at her to leave and asking him to ‘retire’.

She walks towards the hufflepuff room, hesitates when he invites her in – I have got chocolate frogs , if you want any- then says “probably not a good idea. But talk to you later, Tom” and leaves before he can tell her ‘it might be one of the best bad ideas’.

----------

She just marches over him and throws her bag on the table next to him as soon as they’re asked to pair up.  “ prince-boy. Can those skinny arms of you actually stir or do I have to do that?’ she asks. She frowns around the room, where people are already rolling their sleeves up and getting to work. There is a small explosion, probably. He rolls his sleeves up, points at the book. “ Page 83” he says and she nods. They work in that same companionable silence from earlier.

They’re doing pretty well- or at least not as bad as some of the others – when someone hisses ‘what is he doing with her’. They both try to ignore it, but then there are more whispers. When he actually hears ‘ death eater material, can slytherins ever be anything else?’ he marches over to someone (twice his size, bulging muscles, but he is not as helpless as he looks).  “what did you say about my friend? “ he calmly asks. The guy laughs in his face. “ Friend? Merlin, did she use the imperius curse on you? “ he pushes Tom, someone behind hissing ‘stop it!’ then laughs again. “ Or are just a nut?”. The cauldron behind him shoots its content right into his face. Even Tom cannot hold back the tiniest smile as the donkey ears start to grow (behind him, Alice is bend over with laughter)

One month later and he still has to keep Alice from shouting things like ‘do not balk about it , you whiny’.

(the detention was kind of worth it, by the way)

--------

He and Alice have worked on the spell for a while. First, they charmed their butts to the Slytherin bench, but that only worked once. She transfigured his robes into Slytherin ones next, but he was only sitting for five minutes when he was told ‘return to the Hufflepuff table, mister Ward’. There were some other ploys that got them detention and the like ( including the one where he used an invisibility cloak to hide under the table ) until they finally found something : a charmed mirror. And it took them a while (several trips to the library, many questions to professor Flitwick and the one small fire) until they had it: two charmed mirrors. Activated by their code word – Excalibur- , nearly unbreakable and should work over any distance.

It became some sort of challenge, using the mirrors when they did not have classes together. Who could use it unnoticed for the longest while? They left each other little notes- hey, coming to the dinner room now, meet you there?- and even used it to map the entire castle together – found the kitchen! Come eat- and they always, always kept them with them.

Once, Tom was having breakfast with master Gregory when Alice wrote something really funny so he snorted milk over the table ( John Gregory was not a funny man, so it had been impossible to explain)

-----

The first time they went to Hogsmeade, they bought a lot of sweets and threw snowballs and laughed( well Tom laughed, Alice was rolling-eyes-smiling) with the bar keeper. They filled their pockets and Alice’s bag that was charmed with things from zonko’s joke shop.

Alice startled him by sneaking to the Hufflepuff room and laughed when he got a vomit-flavoured bean. They nearly choked on laughter when they tried the..  and Alice just started balking like a donkey. They eventually fell asleep – candy wrappers and string and what all not around them- and only woke when the teacher was scolding them.

Alice gave a small grin behind the teacher and mimicked donkey ears. They got double detention for that.

-------

He first met Alice’s mother when they had gone a little too far. Alice had been hell-bent on seeing the Acromantula’s she had heard lived in the forest. And of course he had followed her- he wasn’t going to let his best friend do this alone- and it had not actually been the first time they had wandered into the forbidden forest. But then they had seen something freakish- he had never seen Alice so pale- a glimpse of sharp teeth and green and silver. There had been a dying unicorn and something throwing them against each other and a laugh.  

Alice had never been this quiet and – small. She had sat staring at the floor of the office. He had gripped her hand tightly as she had muttered ‘please don’t get my mom’ ( the professor had gotten her anyways) and he had still been clutching on to that hand when the door slid open and the room’s temperature sunk ten degrees.

And he had known the rumours ( her mother tried to willingly turn herself into a werewolf. Her mother murdered her own kin. Her mother was behind the disappearances of several muggleborns) but that had not prepared him at all.

Alice’s mother.. she had teeth that were more like fangs, lips that were a little black and the nastiest sneer he had ever seen. And she looked so much like Alice that it was freaky. He felt Alice try to pull back, but he did not let her, actually standing and facing her mother.

She completely ignored him as she tried to bend towards Alice.  “What did you see girl? “ her breath was strange.

“ Nothing” Alice muttered.

“ Don’t lie to me girl!”.

“ I ain’t have seen nothing!” she insisted.

“ I am taking her home”.

And then this woman was dragging his best friend away and maybe he should have thought about it but he was running towards her and pulling at an arm two seconds later.  “let her go! She isn’t going with you, she is staying here- “.

He had never heard Alice afraid like that. As soon as he was slammed into the floor, he heard her scream. “ HE WASN’T DOING ANYTHING”

“ Silence girl” Lizzie did not scream. Did not raise her voice. It was far more effective than Alice’s screams.

He was just struggling to his feet when his best friend was pushed out of the room, struggling and cursing. He couldn’t hear properly and his head hurt badly, but he still tried to run for her. But the doors slammed shut and when he ran outside,

When I first read it, I assumed he'd only started impersonating him on the day he gave the Spook and Tom the fake letters, but the more I think about it, I wonder if he might have been the Fiend for the whole time.

The Spook: What was that?!

Tom: My shirt fell.

The Spook: That sounded a lot heavier than a shirt.

Tom: Like a child psychic? No

Alice: No. The t-shirt size