Chapter 21
"A Virtue"
~~
Maybe we're not so different
The same blood runs within
Our flesh all human
Minds both fresh
On the look out for the new
Exciting in the world
Eyes wild and wide
Chasing a dream
For reality
Wanting to turn things round
To become another
More
Learned
Better
With
Understanding
Acceptance
Have
Experience
Talent earned
Want what you want
Just as likely
Life is here
Same possibilities
Differs only a little
Same potential
Same spirit
All depends upon
The wings
Courage to open up
To walk that way
Off to that day
In the future
~
##Elianne##
They sidled up to the barrier, waiting for a family with a large trolley to pass in front. To the rest of the world they vanished in a blink of an eye.
The man emerged the other side, a hat covering his head and a scarf wrapped all the way round his neck and mouth. He also sported rather dark glasses.
Elianne thought it was an all too absurd disguise for her father but at least no one would recognise the scar or the patented Potter emerald eyes. No one except her and Hermione knew who they held hands with on the platform.
He took her to the side to speak one last time before she got on the train.
Taking her hands to his, he half kneeled to her.
"I'll see you in the summer."
"But…"
He smiled like only a parent could
"You can always write"
She frowned and was making for tears best he could tell.
"Don't worry, I'm here now, don't be afraid. I'm not going away again. I promise."
She hugged him, pulling him closely to her. Happy at finally having someone to hold onto.
As she held onto him she spotted Hermione who was standing of to a side, wearing for the first time since she'd received it back, that emerald necklace. It shone through the opening at the top of her blouse. Elianne doubted Hermione had meant for it to be seen.
She was pulled back by Harry, who grinned grimly at her knowing what she was thinking about.
"Stop trying to match-make. Don't think I haven't noticed. It's not your position to judge things, nor to interfere with our lives. And that's not happening."
"Why?"
She smiled at him with a look that said she knew better.
"I can't stop. I won't stop. You're made for each other. Destiny" she clasped her hands mock wistful at the last word, evoking a tainted laugh from his lips despite any efforts against such behaviour.
The laughter drew unwanted attention to them, as Hermione too noticed. Up and down the station parents and students alike were unremarkably quiet in tide of the events that lacked to touch their family, otherwise Elianne might not have been in such merriment on this day.
Harry simply stood watching, curious about her comments, as she walked away to the train that had carried him away from nothing two decades ago. That had taken him on, to the wildest journey of his life.
+++++
##Elianne##
She gathered into the already crowded compartment that consisted of her dearest friends.
Lucretia sat in the far corner beside the window and Dido, with Flora and Cassandra in conversation. Opposite was her seat on the end next to Elektra, Athena and Helen, one of Floras more recently made friends.
Ever since just after Halloween Flora had been much more friendly to Slytherins and in turn them to her. There was by no doubt a good reason for this that they were missing; as they were Flora. She stayed there for a few minutes chatting miscellaneously before departing to another carriage entirely.
It was a while until anyone particularly acknowledged her presence there. They were all so busy talking about their holidays.
Dido was the only other who said little. Lucretia was leant over acquainting herself with Helen and Elektra, who she'd not seen much of last term.
Cassandra finally brought up the question she'd known would be coming.
"My Christmas wasn't great, couldn't sleep very well these days."
Noticing the curious look on Elektra's and Helen's face she added "…because it's cold. Anyway El, how was your holiday? Do anything interesting?"
Now the real answer would have been exciting. Instead she settled for safe.
"Nothing much. Had a big family type feast, met new people. Like my godfather, I saw him for the first time in my life."
They happily lapped the lie up. Though in truth she felt it to be more of an omission. She did in fact say she met new people and it was true she met Ron for the first time, she just lacked to say she also met her father too.
Dido pointed the conversation once again to a new topic.
"Where did Flora go? She's been disappearing lately. And she never replied to any of my owls over Christmas."
Lucretia shrugged it off. "Me too. Probably homework. If her parents are anything like mine. They made me keep up with my muggle subjects. An all round education…" she mimicked her mothers voice perfectly to the tee "… I barely had any time to finish Professor Isaacs essay after my dads history tutoring, on top of chemistry and maths and that stuff."
The only person not nodding their head in agreement was Helen. She sniggered quietly trying to stifle the giggles. All eyes turned to her for an explanation.
All she could say between the fits was "something else was keeping Flora busy, or more like someone else"
+++++
##Snape##
He rushed around the office quickly, preparing for the arrival of the students. Evermore the source of pain to them all, he was too the Slytherin head of house after all these years. A position that had once before afflicted him, that he'd taken back up just five years ago. In those other five years he'd simply been the solitary potions master, always darkly graceful and eternally sour. After that he'd seen the light metaphorically. He'd joined the order then and had taken his position as head too. The end of that half a decade had made him more aware of his duty. It was as ever to the future, most prominently those who would become the future, the students. That reason was why he was still there. Not primarily though. But that was another story.
He only needed to remind himself why he bothered today to carry on with it.
The years grew harder on him after all and one would require an explanation for the miserable existence he'd admitted upon his own welfare.
Roll on the start of term, the battle commences.
And the real battle begins.
+++++
##___##
"Why was this done?"
The young man stuttered out the answer slowly, fearful of Adeodatus' wrath, finally getting it out.
"Priestess Minrai ordered it so"
Adeodatus eyed up the crowd of robed persons who were gathered in the hall.
"Bring me those who can give me what I wish."
The young man, Tirus, receded and returned with a few select robed figures before rushing away to other more pressing tasks.
Adeodatus looked them over, guardedly.
"What can you do for me friends?"
None answered him. They shivered in their places, not daring to suggest their place.
"Feeble ones" he muttered loudly to himself and all the room inadvertently.
Everyone else felt better for not being one of those who stood in front of their leader, for not being Tirus.
Adeodatus shifted his attention to another part of the space, landing on a small group and two who stood to the side.
"Girl who is your friend, what is his aptitude demonstrated in?"
For the first time she looked up to meet her masters eyes.
"I am Eliza, my glorious leader. I grant you good fortune in the task you are to fulfil and I believed that my father shall be of some use to you."
She moved to the side pointing to the clumped heap of rags, helping him to stand up straight.
"I present to you Thomas, once known as a great dark wizard , whom resides at this time present and future in your generous service."
The huddled figure stumbled across the tiles with a limp, he peered out of his hood with a grey wrought face, riddled with scars of his ordeal.
He spoke carefully towards the man, catching his voice only slightly before he said anything
"Adeodatus, your choice is well. I am skilled in many areas. I can do much for you. Torture and killing are my specialities, but I have so much more to offer. So much knowledge stored in my mind. I was once excellent, now not so, but still my mind harbours all of what was, despite my failing body. Tell me of my task and I shall put to it with all the capability I possess."
The leader smiled briefly and cruelly, then again becoming passive.
"You have not what is to my task. You may only be instrumental to it in parts. But I shall pity your sins for believing you could be what he shall be. You learnt your mistake. We all have ours."
He looked to the ceiling momentarily, perhaps a dread in his eye.
"The skills you offered are of no use. Your cunning, however, may be. Our use of the seer has failed. We see no more than before. Find the Cwendendia for me. Anything is allowed. Anyone who knows is an obstacle to be destroyed. To use in our favour. Only one thing is sacrosanct, the prophecy made true."
+++++
##Snape##
The door opened interrupting any thoughts he'd had.
A bright young thing stood to his attention.
"What may I do for you Daniel?" Snape asked in a placid voice as he menacingly turned around.
Hyssop drew straighter at the sight of the rather reserved head of house.
"Prefect Catarina told me to tell you that there are six Slytherins absent from the house this term. Their parents withdrew them from the school temporarily. She said everything is in order."
Snape's lips thinned at the news.
But he said neutrally "Thank you Daniel, that will be all."
After the boy had gone he withdrew yesterdays daily prophet from under his arm and eyed its headline.
"Groschl girl found in alley". Such a blank way to talk about something that held it all in balance.
His wish for no harm had been broken. This wasn't idiotic fantasy, they'd made it real. Made it into a private war. The public, the community outraged as they were - had no one to direct it to. The order had an idea of what if not where they were.
But harm was done.
Anastis Groschl had been deposited like a bag of old goods into the most notorious alley there was, Knockturn. He wished the ministry providence in getting answers from the inhabitants of that district. They'd need tons of luck if they were to even get a reply from them at all.
And in the picture he noted her devoted sister and close cousin were both by her side at the hospital bed. Now residing permanently at St. Mungos til they hoped she'd recover from the coma. Magic made no difference in this situation. Wait it out was all they had. The one thing Severus Snape had noticed was the lack of Leander, one of his own students. The newspaper more or less summed that up as uncaring, typical they hinted of a Slytherin. Snape having a more evolved sense of logic and insight, knew why Leander had not participated in that deceitful activity.
It made no sense. It made infinity more to stay and continue here. Whether you wanted revenge or justice, it always helped to have an education.
If Leander had not been an eleven year-old first year, Snape might have offered him a deal in the order. Considering his anger that would be to their common enemy. He would not however stoop that low, to recruit the vulnerable to use against them.
And Leander was weak. Supported only by his constant companion, that side the article neglected to report. Conveniently it lacked any mention of Flora Hinkley. How she had become an ever present friend to the fair and level headed young man, since his cousins abduction she'd nearly always sat with him at the Slytherin table early in the mornings, late at lunch and often at dinner. Befriending many of his prized Slytherins, much it seemed to their benefit too, as much as Leander's.
And Snape suspected she was all he hinged on in the time that was so dark for his family.
He should have been downstairs by now. They'd of course notice that discrepancy. Odd for someone as formalised and organised as he. But he couldn't ever expect himself to go on by the track at this time. It took all he had to barricade the memories at the best of times. The recent news had reminded him of old things, the Slytherin past he'd been embedded in. the horrors that had ensued. His place in it.
Why a decade ago the future for the Potter line might have had a happy ending if only he had not put his own priorities before the fate of the world.
How he'd seen the last of the hurt he'd wanted to see finally and how he'd lost all to one simple mistake. A mistake that cost far more for those he'd tried to protect.
The storm he sensed coming in the events echoed in his mind, taking him to his worst nightmare. The nightmare that was true to history, and in glorious multicolour. Showing up the terror all too much more than any human would want who was in their right mind. Showing up the pain he'd experienced, the loss that prevailed through to these days and to new families.
What he wished to prevent he had only exacerbated.
///Snape's flashback///one year after graduation - three days before the attack on The Grange
The rule of Voldemort has increased from power to power, like deadly footholds along a river to the enemies castle. Except that for him the enemy was friend and friend was foe.
And all his efforts to resolve the situation had failed utterly.
Due to one unallowable factor. An unknown servant to their patrician.
One not of the deatheater ranks.
Someone so masterfully important that only Voldemort himself knew the plan.
Snape kicked himself for not suspecting earlier. He'd been out of favour mostly. Forever redeeming himself. But if he'd known he'd have tried evidently harder. Doing whatever it took was imperative because he could feel this was the final key. To a door he'd missed the opening to.
Now was far too late to stop it. Voldemort had hinted as much. Three days only til 'the fall' as he poetically put it.
The fall of what Snape was at a mystery to just as the rest of the inner circle. Anger flailed them but no one would question supreme authority.
What was done was done.
And fall they would. Whoever they were, whatever it meant. The rise of Voldemort was what it said.
~
Two days was all the time it took til he'd find out. A day before the actual event and he'd have known who and how.
But a strand of comments struck him down without warning.
"How is the ceasing of the Planvuckt manuscript going my dear Lucius?"
A twirk of the muscles made that enerved face smirk splendidly.
"Very well my lord. The Museum of Hermouth is to be stormed this night and the precious document will be yours."
The museum. The name. It grinned at him in his head. Where had he heard it from? Why was it sparkling up at him, cruelly taunting his mind?
He sprung from his position in the circle with great haste, making it toward the door when Voldemort barked out
"Severus, what do you think you are doing!"
He went for the door at speed, making out Voldemort's voice bellowing at his impervience.
He slammed it, seeing for a second a green flash under the edges, where he should have been standing had he waited.
He fled to the apparating point.
The tingling sagacity illustrated the pure facts.
Yvette had mentioned the museum in her letters. He was sure. She worked there, part time, in the archives.
The charm for building however was impenetrable. And he would not have doubted its safety if not for the strange disappearance of Hogwarts eminent charms student. Draco Malfoy. Soon after his forced marriage to the Parkinson girl, he had not appeared at school anymore. This sad misfortune affected more than simply Draco. The boy who for sake of loyalty to legacy had kept a face of incivility to Gryffindors and muggleborns alike all his years in schooling. All in act of preparation. Only his great talents in charms and immaturity in else assured he did not yet join the ranks.
But plans fail when best laid. He had been put to the task at wand point, his father instrumental to making him in a position not in the field
Lucius shamed at his ineptitude and reluctance had put the darling disgrace where he could help the cause without damage to name.
Breaking wards of targets.
If Hermouth was destroyed it was singly by his hands. Inclined or not, responsibility left no room for doubt.
The scene of the ancient library, the museum of fact and knowledge, was catastrophic.
They were in all places, killing the keepers of the tomes and the visitors of the magical place.
He stood by watching the horror as the deatheaters relished the death and pain.
He heard the noises of a war torn front line, the losing side tortured for fun, no longer needed. Discarded as if inhuman, unworthy.
The black and white of the cloaks and masks hovered over many, faceless figures of destruction. Heartless eradicators, slaying people like beasts, like game for hunting.
In among it he spotted a lone form, a boy carrying a burden past the weight of his years, shocked into standing. Not helping, not able to comprehend events.
His attention was diverted by the screams his ears sought out, her screams.
He rushed his way past the ambling deatheaters in the throes of a bloody passion near ended.
There she was, kneeling on a rug. The cold shape suspended above, revelling in her slow murder.
The screams flowed freely from her mouth, uncensored. She moved crazed, dazed to submission. Broken by the spells the one had performed on her. Too many to take back, to heal her from. A lowly soldier of a vast darkness, took away his last breath of hope from him. In doing that he'd signed the death warrant for the whole twisted regiment.
She, the constant through out his mad pain filled life, gone. The girl he was deprived of.
Yvette fowler. Muggle born witch. His second love, his first true love.
Denied by tradition to keep the bloodlines pure.
Denied by his history, his work to make it right.
Always too hazardous to get involved, too much a danger to her as well as what he had upon his shoulders.
The years gone since he'd first met her, tutoring her in potions. She two years younger, a bright studious Ravenclaw, who never the less did not ask once why they were denied, what he did, why it all had to be.
His ways hidden from her. She unknowing to his true nature.
He said he'd explain it sometime.
His dream, to tell her when it was all over, for one person who mattered to forgive him; for there to be more than pain to feel.
The eyes stark and still, filled with deadly hate.
And the deatheater watched darkly laughs at the pointed wand.
But dies the same as all the rest are to.
All but the last.
His heated glare caught the glint of Yvette's ring. It hung lightly from a chain around her neck.
He lifted her limp body from the wreckage, and pulled it off her.
The rounded band of silver was smooth as when he'd bought it. Set into it, circled with a further silver mount was black onyx. Half a sphere.
The rest it was cut from, set in his own ring. The other piece to it.
His fingers found the leather thong that his draped on and the glassy jewel in the loop.
He'd fully intended it to be a wedding ring but he'd lost the nerve after the friendly talk his grandfather had given him on the virtue of constancy.
He'd never expected that she'd have held onto it in the years. It had not been mentioned since he'd given it, presented as a simple gift to a friend from a friend.
He ripped it from its chain, tying it to his cloaks silk strap.
There weren't any people left. The deatheaters had killed any not of their own and by his murder of them, it left just three bodies. His love's soft form on the floor, his own forsaken stature and one shaking adolescent.
Staring at him coldly.
Knowing he's responsible.
He's the only one who could make it happen.
The sole person who did it, responsible for her death, for all the pain of the people here.
He glares at the trembling Draco in the shadow of the building.
Wand clenched by his side.
Fire in his very soul.
Seeking retribution for what has passed.
The future in his hands.
~~
Into life
I can't stand this
Too much
In the way
Talk about roses
The pretty bitches
Smell sweet;
Liquered
Lean in closer
Prick your finger
Blood dripping
Such surprise
Never knew,
The first time
Beware
How many times now?
Cuts forever open
Not a chance to heal
~~