Chapter 25
"A Fate Against Fate"
~~
Stripping me down
To what I am
The pain of horror
Knowing what you're made of
And do you like it as so
Taking away all the comforts
Of the cheery denial
That keeps me helpless
Though in my state
I cannot help of what I'm made
Pulling from me, barriers
Kept and sealed
A tide uncovered
That spills in a froth
Over my heart
What I hid
What I can't deal with
This is me
I cringe to say
This is me
And who am I
Everyone knows but me
~
##Draco##
Who talks of these things.
Of dark days. Ways to witch that no one likes to even think about.
They don't even want to believe it could be.
Maybe it's only my time spent in the godforsaken place that made me question it.
Either way we have one choice.
Only one way to get her back.
Certain sacrifices will have to be made.
Everyone expects that.
Around here it is business.
"So what do they want with her? Why..why? Is she some sort of sacrifice?"
He wondered how Harry had gotten to that idea.
Worst case scenario. Sounded right. The most horrible thing could be to die.
But his mind silently protested that wasn't actually the feared outcome.
The discussion continued between the members and Harry.
Draco watched and listened. He couldn't help any more than he had.
Not until they came up with a plan.
Though he knew any scheme would be that. Not simply rescue the damsel in distress. Put them out of it. Scutter the khaeodrics campaign as well.
He turned back to the unpeaceful group of stragglers. Harry and Snape were in heated debate.
An accurate version of it would be more like, Harry screaming, pleading angrily his case. That something must be done.
"Yes I know we have to do something but we must take our time. We need to find out our motives."
Harry's lips twisted round in sheer frustration
"We'll never know why it is now that he's not spying anymore. But we can guess. And the best guess is he the human victim for the slaughter."
To the mans powerful outrage Snape replied calmly
"And? …That could be used to our advantage Mr. Potter. It isn't as bad as it seems."
Harry stepped forward looking to be about to throw a punch, at what he interpreted from Snape as complete indifference.
Frederick and Olga clambered round to hold his arms back.
More of them tried to do the same, taking up quite a few to tame his fury.
Harry gave up leaving it to shout at Snape indignantly.
The fear was in the words as he croakily voiced them.
"What could possibly be any worse than that?"
Draco flinched at the mention
Drawing back from them all, at the sudden horror overcome his mind.
*If it was true.*
+++++
##Hermione##
She sat in the throne.
Her hands and feet still tied up.
But she'd been having not such a bad time today.
So far all the attendants were in admiration of what they thought she was.
Though none would untie her.
Eliza would be here soon.
She couldn't try it on with her. Well, not likely.
Eliza wasn't quite as blind as the other members.
Maybe she'd still die for the cause as they said they all would, but she knew Eliza would always try her hardest not to have to.
She had other loyalties. Ones that lay deep and despite her promises.
Hermione had secretly been hoping that Eliza was to blame. That Ron was right. And now he was proved entirely correct in his hypothesis.
If only the reality of the victory hadn't had to be so dire.
Harry had been betrayed ten years before and here and now she only knew because she was the mouse to cult's cat. Caught in a trap.
The said woman entered the room, clapping her hands unexpectantly to the attendants.
They hushly left the room at what Hermione only supposed could be Eliza's command.
"I'm here to prepare you" the statement was blank and industrial.
She knew Eliza didn't want to be here unless she got to taunt her.
The bomb she'd dropped yesterday still ate at her mind. Eliza never had gotten that chance to question her on it.
And she ignored her evermore as she untied the bonds, eyeing her.
The untying wasn't for comfort. Robes lay by her sides on the floor.
Preparation for what?
A ceremony perhaps.
Though they wouldn't hurt her. Not as their divine what ever they considered her.
Eliza roughly forced her into the robes, pulling them over the top of her tattered stained clothes from the hijack.
She spared no thought to the pain she put here through as she shoved her down in the seat and retied the cords over the sore blistering skin.
She stood there over her afterwards.
Silent.
Hermione took the opportunity to give back a little of the menace she'd been subjected to by her in the past 24 hours.
"You'd be the first one I'd spite is I'm a goddess. Envious?"
##Eliza##
A grin formed on the gross lips.
"As if."
She walked away, back turned.
Then to her surprise she turned around and stopping momentarily to call back to her leaders favourite lady.
"Don't think you're some goddess. Demi-goddess maybe. By a fortune strangely set. Right now they honour you. But they await the power he is and the god in you is not you. You are just the unlucky soul, excuse the pun, that he subverted to his nefarious plan. You are just a tool. Merely the body for his essence. Do not be so foolish to think you will be yourself when it is done. You will be gone, sooner or later. He shall win.
In the end there will be nothing left but our lord chaos and his will. You are very simply put a walking corpse from now on. That said. Hope you enjoy the ritual. Have a nice ascension."
The malice dripped from the sentence, harsher than any had before. She'd been waiting ages to say that to the privileged Queen.
##Hermione##
Hermione stared blankly after the doors as they closed.
She heard the call through them for the priestess.
That did not sound good.
Unless it was Eliza's little joke of scaring her.
But enough presumptions had been made in the past. Now was a bad time to pick up the habit, because if she was wrong….
+++++
##Harry##
He woke from his sleep dry.
The bunk was cold and wet.
All the dampness from his eyes dried into what they called a pillow. It didn't pass his test.
She was out there somewhere.
Somewhere.
There were hundreds of bases for the cult.
The order had charged 50 already.
But how much time did they have?
They already found out something was going down sometime soon.
The khaeodrics weren't very cooperative though. Not even Snape could prise out any info past the hideous final laughs and boasts of the captured followers.
They'd rather commit suicide than reveal what could spoil the grand plan.
They had no hope.
His last wish was that there was a chance at least.
That it didn't involve her death.
That she'd live on.
That she'd be ok.
+++++
##Hermione##
Presumptions wouldn't have made any difference.
Nothing could change her situation.
She'd given up escape when she was escorted by ten at a time to the hall. She'd thought where she'd been before was the hall.
But no, this was the great hall.
Rarely used, she caught by the whispers of those who led her in chains to the place.
When she got there, the arch loomed, doorless. Enabling them to see the great wide ceiling. The walls graced with horrified but beautiful murals. It was as if the cistine chapter had been turned inside out to a place of terrified artwork.
It encaptured her attention for far longer than her friends.
They dragged her up effortlessly to the front of the room, where on the big stage leant the stolen stone plinth. Jacob's Slab. Right before her body it towered over the whole group.
They pushed her reluctantly towards it.
She tried fervently to remember what the curator had said it was for, other than human sacrifices.
She recalled it had never been sued for that. That didn't help her, her brain scrambled towards the inevitable conclusion.
They thought she was who they were looking for.
They'd been waiting millennia for her.
And if they were waiting for the right person then of course it would make sense they'd never used it.
+++++
##Hermione##
She should have been able to see this.
It had never been in the future she'd seen.
And if it was true it had all been done before she even existed.
The god meddling with her very makeup, her spirit. Tainting it with his essence.
That she hadn't seen it only pointed to the fact they were wrong. They'd got someone but not the right one. Coincidence. A rather bad luck for her.
The guards as she could now call them had pushed her into the inlaid depression of the stone. That fit the human body perfectly. It was certainly made for this. For a woman too.
They'd chained her in rather ominously.
And in front they had placed a round stone table that matched the hunk she was in.
And it too had a strange curve cut into the stone. Of a shape she'd hated to think about.
The high priestess was currently using the table, mixing a potion up, grinding ingredients. Hermione wasn't sure what for though.
Not like she'd have much choice over drinking it or being subjected to it. she did everything they wanted purely because she could not refuse to.
And in the background the figures filed in until it was full, packed with far more of them than she'd witnessed ever before.
+++++
##Hermione##
They crowd waited. For several hours.
Murmurs went round, as she felt them every now and again look in awe up to her.
Probably wishing they were her.
If only they could be.
The priestess had smeared occult symbols over the ornate robes she wore. Hermione couldn't help but think that was wasteful. Though the meaning of the symbols bothered her more. She did not recognise them at all.
They were most likely as old as the slab, older than books could record.
Finally the person arrived. Adeodatus floated in, gliding over the floor. A sea of the inconspicuous people parted to make a walkway for him. squashing themselves back more to please his presence.
She felt sick.
As if the whole ascension wasn't bad enough, he had to be here for it.
Made sense. She wished it wouldn't.
He made her feel as if the world turned upside down inside out, sickened to her core at what he was inside. The spirit she could feel emanating from him.
It wasn't malice, hate. It was pure. Pure in the way you wished couldn't be.
Something raw. And raw much like the way of a bloody meat. Oozing it out, letting you know this is how it is really.
It was like he was the son of the god. Though he wasn't and it was far more nauseating to think that he existed naturally as such.
He ordered Minrai to begin.
She commanded the followers to chant with her.
She recited from memory. And they copied, grasping hands for power and support.
And the priestess started rocking to the sides, eyes closed in a deep sleep of the magic.
She changed the chant, forming it into verses. Adeodatus held his hand up signalling that they should continue.
The hall reverberated with the loud collective sound of the chant in the background and Minrai's solo chorus in a hoarse voice, gathering amplitude at each expression.
Suddenly the undulation of the priestess reached an ear stretching point, a crescendo to the energy and she raised the curved dagger high in the air….. her eyes closed, the knife poised mechanically ready to strike at the target.
~
Its liquid
The fire through my veins
Its breathed upon my body
Blown into me
The ice chills
Sent to my brain
The way I am insane
To its sound
The music, the melody
Sweeter than often life is
Its liquid
Untraceable
Not sure where it originates
Want more
But where do you go
To find what's from your soul
Its liquid
Raining on all of us
Soaking into what we are
Drenching thoughts away
To better places
Sites safe, in the mind
To dreams forgotten
To what we wished
Could be true
Its liquid
Wishes
Desirable,
What went away
The drops stopped falling
The people didn't stay
Its liquid fire
Its liquid ice
Burning through
Burning you
Too deep to detach
Others scared
Only I knew
This is purity
My life given to me
~
The dagger struck, plunging into the soft flesh of the heart.
Blood splattering outwards, covering Hermione.
She turned her head away in an effort to getaway from the sight and stench of it.
Of the priestess' body thrown over the stone table. The torn organ probably angled correctly into the hole for it.
The glorious leader had taken up chanting again charismatically waving towards his flock, smiling at the spectacle.
"The blood by which it starts. Rejoice"
The picture infront clouded her thoughts, emotions getting the better of her, whilst she attempted to put it all together.
*What does it mean?
If its real…. How it could be?
And the shock. By which it starts?
He means for more to be shed.*
She reproached herself for the surprise. They worshipped the god of chaos, it should be pretty clear they didn't worship that kind of deity lightly or without significance.
She faintly heard Adeodatus's words over the once more great noise of the chant, calling out the final words of a Latin inscripture,.before it overcame her.
The spell was done.
Done fully and precisely as was designed.
She screamed out in agony at the feeling. Her shrieks not heard over the chanting.
It coursed through her veins. Through every part of her. A pain of being pushed apart.
All the sensations possible experienced. at once moment.
And unlike she'd have thought, they did not cancel out. What she felt wasn't the neutrality of love versus hate. It was it all at the same time. Bursting, exploding inside her cells. Filling her with a reversed ecstasy. That it was there in her. Everything in her. Only as torture.
And further that the chanting had stopped. They watched her pleasantly as if all their birthdays had arrived at once. In her crazed anger she thought of them as happy smiling people, smiling at her pain.
Smiling at her horror and the anguished screams she made in her state.
With every single fibre filled over the brim with tenderness, coming into contact with all the impression that's possible.
But not balancing out, too much for he to take
She wished, begged that unconsciousness would carry her away from the pain. Into a true bliss. Of nothing after the whole lot. A vacuum compared to this.
That she could slip blithely into unconsciousness
That delight did not come.
~
A fate against fate
Hopeless they'll say
She was meant for this
Went for that,
Gripped by a passion
Greater than will
And mightier than the light
Almost as in the bards
Of tales of hearts broken
Life into shards
Left all but little
And over too soon
A heat that captures
Energy that rolls
Taking them with it
Into a destiny
Made for one
Made for who you're supposed to be
Taking you in to what you aren't
Incase you are
Hard times encased
To your sturdy image
You cannot escape
With only
Words ringing;
Sagely
Around the mind
Remember my friend
Fortune favours the brave
~