[It was mad overlapping dreams haunting her well after they had any right to, wrapping gauzy intangible hands around her throat and lingering about her shoulders like someone else's shawl. It was going out to tamp down the whole mess of it, to try and drown persistent strangeness, and running all but face-first into Saul Cain. ('Isn't he dead?' they'd once asked. 'That cunt can't die.' Lo and behold, speculation proved possible reality. That grin of his said he knew things and she didn't, hadn't it?) It was her sister showing up unannounced -- taking a page from Elizabeth's own book, it seemed, completely at odds with character -- Cath with her cautious smile and the furrow between her brows, and then the explanatory floodgates flying open.
It was a whole new world with the journal in Lizzie's hands, spartan cover and heavy pages filling up with words penned by invisible others. And for every question she asked her little sister -- her sister the Librarian, apparently, and what exactly did that come out to? -- another dozen came rushing forward, tripping over themselves like eager puppies. Still, she held back awhile longer. Take in what others put out for purview, get the lay of the land, only then wade in and probe the weak points. Did magic work the way the rest of the world did? Pen to paper, journalist's compact letters; she'd find out.]Magic.
Magic. Does mean the Potter franchise is placebo, or propaganda? Do I need to start looking over my shoulder after vampires and werewolves next? Aliens?