Chapter One
Snow Stained Red
Excerpt from Famous Witches and Wizards: Before the Age of Merlin - By Wenda Raven:
Page 2,007 -
~"The legend of the witch Queen Irisel of the year 800 B.C. is not a well remembered legend amongst the common Wizarding society of today. She was the only daughter of the exiled High Priestess Nariana of an island that is today believed to be the lost enchanted island of Avalon: as any school child will know it is where the creation of all things magical began (see page 4,087 for details). Queen Irisel's exact date of birth is unknown, but she was believed to have been born sometime in the year 780 B.C., somewhere in the coastal lands of Britain. She was a child of the Beltane fires and her father was the Great Hunter, and by tradition he was left anonymous.
Three years before Irisel's birth, the land of Avalon had been corrupted through the Dark Arts and had become infested with the demons of the Dark Lord and his unknown mistress. The Kingdom of Avalon was forced to seek refuge on the main land, where they were scorned and persecuted by the common folk. The High Priestess Nariana saw hope in her slowly blooming daughter, who had no knowledge of her heritage, other than her mother's healing arts. Irisel is rumored to have grown up in the wild country outside of Yorkshire and knew little of ordinary people, save what she heard from her mother and the few people whom she lived with. But from an early age the High Priestess knew that her only daughter was special. She had the gift of the gods, she could commune with nature and nurture the earth and bend it to her will, or so the records say. Irisel's power was dangerous and unpredictable and she grew up with no knowledge of her strange behavior. Until the day she learned of King Teritan of Avalon, the Dark Lord of hell itself.
The High Priestess Nariana is believed to have died of natural causes sometime in 802 B.C., leaving Irisel at the young age of fifteen, alone and unprepared. Irisel harbored a hard and blind hate for the Dark Lord and his equally evil Queen, and vowed on her mother's grave to regain the sacred land of her people.
At the age of seventeen Irisel had gathered an army of over a twenty thousand, both of fey and British decent. But it wasn't until sometime in 801 B.C. that she met the British wizard warrior, Jared of HallowWood, and joined forces with he and his vastly larger army. The details of many of their battles are sketchy and ill-recorded (see page 3,007 for details), but sometime in the year 800 B.C., Irisel was named Queen by her people and led a final battle, with her Champion Jared of HallowWood at her side, into the black land of Avalon. Irisel, her beau, and the Dark Lord were lost forever in a blinding clash of magic that was said " ...to blind the hearts of men and scar the soul...." The battle was won that day but the only Witch Queen recorded in history was lost, and Avalon's evil Queen disappeared from history.
******************************************************************
Soft snow drifted downwards languidly, like diamonds from the frosty grey sky above. A light caressing wind made erotic patterns of the fine downy ice, sending it in wild dances through the air. From a high icy tower in the East Wing, Ginny Weasley watched as they fluttered past the window she was staring fixedly out of. She thought longingly of the warm cozy dormitory that awaited her, the cup of exquisite, steamy hot chocolate, with vanilla of course, that would be sitting at her bedside when she arrived. Turning away from the snowy storm outside she directed her thoughts towards the book settled on the table in front of her. The class room around her was bitterly silent save for Colin Creevey's breathy snores a few desks in front of her. She sat in the back of the room in the corner desk, right next to a small glass window that when clear, had a wonderful view over the Forbidden Forest.
Ginny sighed wearily and let her soft brown eyes skim over the paragraph she was supposed to be reading. Throughout the class she had tried desperately to focus on the lesson but her mind kept straying towards nothing in particular. She was freezing as well, her toes numb in her black glossy shoes, her thread-bare, second hand cloak no match for the chill of the room. If only Professor Binns wasn't dead and had the perception to start a fire in the warmly awaiting fireplace just behind his nearly transparent body. At least he wasn't lecturing anymore, she reminded herself, trying desperately to look on the bright side as she suppressed a shiver, pulling her much too long sleeves over her chilled fingers.
Sinking back into herself Ginny started out the window once more. Here she was half-way through her sixth year, and she still felt like a lost first year looking for Hagrid and his rickety boats at the Lake. All her Hogwarts years she had felt apart and different, but... how could she not when she held the stain of darkness on her soul so kindly placed by the late Tom Riddle. She wasn't depressed, nor did she wish to be alone, her nightmares happened rarely and she felt mostly normal. But there was something else, something that stirred beneath the surface, like the calm before a storm, that drew her away from the common worries of people her age. Ginny shuddered from the cold and sunk lower in her chair, eyes focused on the snow drifting lazily outside the frosted window.
An uneasy quiet had settled over the Wizarding world. The Dark Lord was out there somewhere bidding his time, as he had been ever since his last encounter with Harry his fifth year. This time Ginny shuddered from the pain of memory, what a horrible year that had been. Thinking of Harry always brought tears to her eyes, she would always harbor something of a crush on the Boy Who Lived, but most of all she felt a deep sense of pity and a quiet understanding. She had been touched by darkness once and had barely survived, yet Harry had been subjected to the terrors of Voldemort not once but eight times, and was still expected to achieve victory. Harry was wearing away, his spirit downcast and falling faster and faster towards despair. They were losing him not physically, but spiritually with every day that passed - even Ron and Hermione, were nearly lost to him. Again Ginny shuddered and rose with the rest of the class as Professor Binns dismissed them.
At the door, Ginny turned and looked out the small window once more, watching the snow, and wishing that like the small delicate flakes, she could be lost among the white and pure. Nothing was pure anymore. Everything was stained red. The door shut with solemn click behind her.
If only she had known then her life was about to take a horrible turn for the worst.
****
Draco loved nothing more than to bait a Weasley into uncontrolled rage. It was like oxygen to him: he couldn't go a day without throwing an insult or two at least one of the redheaded Muggle lovers. Like a drug, it was fun and addictive, but the best part was that they were so very easily riled.
Ronald Weasley, Draco's favorite target, had just failed for the tenth time at producing the right ingredients during a particularly boring class of Potions. It was obvious to everyone that Weasley was merely guessing at which jar held the dried remains of a vampire's heart. Snape looked happy enough to sing, as Weasley, on his final chance, selected a jar of horse-radish.
"Weasley," Draco drawled over the hissing of cauldrons, "You're so bloody stupid that you could fall into a barrel full of nipples and come out sucking your thumb."
The Slytherins' laughed cruelly in appropriate quantities of mockery, and Draco noted with unabashed pleasure that both Potter and Weasley became almost instantly red with anger. It was almost too easy, and the way Weasley's ears turned a humorous molten red was well worth it. Draco smirked, pleased despite himself.
Snape himself smiled faintly - well, the corners of his thin white lips twitched upwards anyway- before announcing in his normally cold voice that ten points would be taken from Gryffindor because of Weasley's lack of much needed brain cells. Draco felt he had done his duty and returned to calmly slicing the entrails of a goat into little pieces, ignoring the glares from Potter and Weasley a few tables away.
The dungeons were characteristically frigid for the season and Draco's pale fingers were slowly becoming numb with cold. He wondered vaguely if Snape realized how bloody freezing it got down there in the winter, or if he even cared. He should be made to care, Draco thought angrily as he added his dried vampire's heart, causing his potion to turn a deep, red blood color.
Ten minutes later Draco was calmly stirring his perfect Invisibility Potion and ladling it into a large glass jar, scribbling his name across the top and setting it proudly on the table beside his notes, making sure Potter and Weasley could see it clearly from the distance. They noticed, as Draco knew they would, and glared at him in pure hatred. Draco had to fight the urge to smile brightly back at them.
A split second before class was to be dismissed, the blundering fool, Neville Longbottom, succeeded in melting his very first cauldron of the year, which was actually quite impressive for the idiot. Draco, who was at the time flicking bits of intestines at the back of Harry's head, wasn't quick enough to escape the great wave of sick brown liquid.
The wrongly concocted Potion struck him full in the chest as it splattered onto the cold stone floor, and Draco felt as though he had been suddenly struck by lightning. His heart stopped mid-beat and his blood froze in his veins, everything was in slow motion, and then he was falling. He was sure he was dying, and fear gripped at the functioning parts of his brain.
Through the haze he heard his father's voice softly echoing through his befuddled mind, cruel and hard. "Dying for the Dark Lord is the greatest honor Draco, you should never be afraid to die for our Lord, never..." Draco wasn't quite sure why this occurrence suddenly came to mind, but he supposed he would have to ponder it in hell, and he was quite positive he was headed in that direction. His poor mother would be devastated, if only he could tell her he loved her.....
Then like a candle being blown out, everything faded into black.
***
The small dismal chamber was completely dark save for a nearly spent candle settled precariously on the rough stone floor. The cold air was stale and smelled of old books and some faintly rotting creature.
Beside the lazily flickering candle sat an open book, and beside that, a dead body. It was the body of a woman. She was beautiful, with long flowing blonde hair that now hung limp about her shoulders, and piloted around her lolling head. She wore expensive robes of satin and lace, its red color succeeding only in bringing out the pale dead color of her skin and her blue lips. Yes, Narssica Malfoy had been beautiful in life, but in death, she would be not only lovely, but terrible with power.
From the shadows, the Dark Lord cackled mirthlessly and took from his neck a vial of dark blood. With it he began the ceremony that would ensure his victory, a victory not even Harry Potter and his prophecy could stop.