Fathers Daughter

Chapters 1 – 5

~~

The Beginning

~~

##Elianne##

There was a girl who lived... again.With fair red hair and startling green eyes.

Elianne had no parents and up until her 11th birthday all she'd known was that they had died in a terrible accident that no one wanted to talk about.

It hadn't helped that her aunt refused to talk about this yet would go on countless times about her father's life, short as it was.

And I'd known from as far back as I could remember that there was a very good reason for this.

My aunt loved him.

Of course she wasn't my aunt, effectively though as she was my guardian. I have no living relatives.

Despite the fact she was a foster aunt I'd always thought of her as my mother, more than my real mum. She was gone, so distant, so far removed and I know barely anything of her.

But then, my aunt doesn’t know much about her either.

But the way she talked about my father; like he was a hero. I never knew why. Until now. I'd just thought it was how she saw him. The truth though isn't far from that.

Harry Potter

My dear dad; the wizarding hero. The greatest wizard of the last century. Perhaps they'll expect me to be the next, for this century.

My father was only eighteen when he died and I only a tiny baby, alone in the world and taken in by Hermione.

~~

How It Was

~~

##Elianne##

Growing up there were so many things that pointed to it all, that I’d simply never seen.

Like my interest in herbs. I loved the idea of making things, cures, aids. They never did anything much and I could always see my aunt's disapproving look. Almost as if she thought they weren't what they should be, fraudulent compared to whatever she was used to. I never listened to the silent criticism.

Now I could see.

For wizard’s herbs really could heal, really could do amazing things. And my little herb garden I grew in hope of getting something from seemed petty.

But with plenty of study I was sure I could cultivate the years spent on normal herbs into a passion and talent for herbology at Hogwarts.

Perhaps I could even be good at potions, despite the supposedly malicious Professor Snape.

That day, it was as if a veil was lifted from me. One that had hidden me from the secrets, from the whole world I was born into.

I couldn't feel bad they'd denied me it.

After all, the same in a way had happened to Hermione. She’d simply chosen to raise me away from the hustle and bustle of the wizards and witches. To save me from the pain of being reminded by someone every day.

I think that was why she never did it. She was saving herself from the pain as much as anything.

Apparently she still had a witch job, which I was unaware of; and all the small things I didn't think anything of, like having a pet owl, my aunt treasuring a stick as special, the clock in the kitchen being different from others I’d seen.

They just didn't get questioned.

Waving pictures gets me. We never had those. I only had one of my father, a normal photo, from when he was maybe 15. And now suddenly I can see him looking up at me, moving. A whole book of them, of all his school friends, even a few of his wedding.

As Hermione has already warned me, this new world I find amazing, it already knows me. Not in and out, not the true details. They know me and I know nothing. She has been explaining though.

All about the families and Hogwarts, my soon to be new home. I’m worried my leaving is going to hurt her. She loves me as much for my link to the past as for me myself, the small part of my father that lives on.

Strange how finding it out brings up a ton of secrets out of the woodwork. I have a godfather. Who of course I knew about, but now its clear why he never came to see me. I remind him too much of everything. Ron Weasley.

I'd been told before that they were family friends, that Hermione and my father were best friends with him, and the Weasleys were like a second family, perhaps more of a first one really.

As with anyone who'd known him, I was too much to deal with. Too much like my father. Only real differences apparently are me being female and a redhead.

I get that from my mother. No one knew her too well. Otherwise maybe they could tell me about her.

My father met her just after he graduated and they had a whirlwind romance, getting married a few months after they met. Then I came along. Even my father had only known her for just a year when they died. It all happened so quickly no one can say much about it.

In the pictures they look happy though. At least for that little while they had.

She told me about it all today. Yesterday she'd explained so much that I thought there could be no more. But today she told me the real trail of events that led to their death, to the pain everyone shared.

I didn't think I could ever hate.

Believing they died in an accident is one thing. Usually accidents are just that, no ones fault, not intentional. He meant to kill them, and so many helped him. I can't believe they exist. That all of it happened. No wonder he was a hero.

He lived, against the odds.

He saved the world, despite the power he was up against.

He died, like no one thought would ever happen.

And as I can't believe, I hate them. It’s good they're already gone. I wouldn't like to control what’s in my heart; that they gave me this burden. No father, no mother.

It’s lucky that it’s all over now.

~~

It Could Be

~~

##Elianne##

We were at the breakfast table a few days later, after my birthday and all the ensuing drama. My aunt was rushing around in a moderate way like she had a habit of doing. Fussing over little details of the morning preparation, as I humbly sat and spread marmalade over my toast. I’m sure I looked a little dreamy, I’d been promised a trip to Diagon Alley today. I just couldn't think what books I wanted to get from Flourish and Blotts. Maybe ‘The Haulm of Understanding Herbs’, but ‘Flinders Encyclopaedia of Harmful Herbs’ looked good too, if a little out of my level. It wasn't even like I could grasp what I would see today.

You could be told all you wanted about Diagon Alley and its awe inspiring shops, but nothing was likely to compare to the real wizard world. My head buzzed with excitement. It was all starting. A journey almost, that I set sail out on this day. Only it’s not quite as poetic as that really.

Exciting and nonetheless scary too. I don't know anything yet and there are bad people out there, who know alot. Who I can't protect myself from. At least neither can any other new muggleborn Hogwarts student.

I sensed something wrong and twitched my nose in irritation. Then I realised the room was very quiet, practically silent.

I glanced up, ready to look right back down to my breakfast but my attention was caught by the fact my aunt was standing stock still at the other side of the table.

"Hermione? Are you ok?" I asked tentatively

She didn't seem to hear me. Her face was devoid of all colour, pale as ice. For a few second I was afraid she was dead, but then she blinked slowly.

She stared evenly at the parchment in her hand, a letter.

"Who’s it from?"

She took a while to answer me, and even then the words came out slowly as if through treacle, she acted like her mind was stuck on something.

"Your godfather."

"Ron? But we never get any letters from him unless it’s Christmas." That didn't make any sense, why would it matter anyway? I just didn't know how Ron’s letter could affect her like that. The answer came in slowly.

"Not your godfather. Sirius Black, Harry’s godfather."

I never heard her call him that; he was always referred to as my father. Hermione didn't want to remind herself on him, it distanced her that way. The only reason she'd say that was if... something else had reminded her.

I stared at her squarely, which was a challenge as she was positioning her eyes downwards. I could see she was shocked, why wasn't very forthcoming. She kept closing her eyes momentarily, working through the facts every way possible.

The chair scraped against the floor as she dragged it away to sit down on. Finally she looked at me, though not without a distant reverie on her face.

"Until today I didn't know if he survived. So many people went missing in the battle, the months before, even after. I never heard from him once."

I raised an eyebrow sceptically.

"That’s what it's about? Is it really that shocking? I mean you said you didn't know either way..."

Hermione interrupted my bemused ramblings suddenly. "No, that’s not why. It’s just that he said.... he wanted me to know...that...that. Well... I can't believe it myself...Your father may be alive...."

In between her disjointed words it came out and as she spoke on, I could feel my mind sinking into myself. Everything had changed at this point. I could feel it, that cool chill reverberating through all my being.

My father alive.

When he shouldn't be. Everyone knew he shouldn't be. He had been dead to the world, muggle and wizard, for over a decade.

And now suddenly he could be back. Maybe yes, maybe no, I heard the words, but I knew he was now, and I knew there was more to it. More implications to this than everyone having him back.

There was a fate, his couldn't have been over.

All this coming from me, a mere girl. I knew though that it was true. I was right. It was knowledge from inside me, my bones, my essence told me. It came from a part of me that couldn't lie.

“.... it’s not really real...after all this time. We all thought he was dead. Definitely....it's...too much....don't even know if he is...but he might be, somewhere out there, he might be alive.”

~~

What Not To Expect

~~

##Elianne##

Walking down Diagon Alley I managed to sneak a look at every window we passed. Never got to go inside, my aunt was leading me to somewhere and as of yet showed no sign of stopping anywhere.

As promised we'd gone on the shopping trip but when she said we were going still, the words came out without fret or emotion. They had no meaning to her. They were spoken blindly.

And in her showing me around she barely thought about it. She was just took me round searching for a place as far away as possible. Today I was simply a distraction. Anything better than staying in at home alone with your thoughts. I could see her losing control gradually. Not the control of anger.

Of herself.

On her face there was that struggle, she'd held onto hope all those years not allowing to believe and now there was food for that desperate wish, the one that had been wrong to her all along. Suddenly it might be true. And the despair, the desire for it to be was tearing her apart.

I... I felt numb. Possibly should have felt more. I have a dad now. The thought somehow doesn’t inspire me much.

There’s the fear. What if he doesn’t live up to the stories of him, all I know of him?

He already has of course technically. Expectations are different though.

My aunt had stopped momentarily and I noticed a small side alley. It pulled at me; there was something there. I moved towards only to be yanked back by Hermione.

“Never go in there. Never Elianne. Remember the dark wizards I told you about? That’s their place. Not ours. Merlin save the day any good wizard need go in there.”

They walked away, Hermione rushing their bodies from the area.

*I didn’t even realize we were near the bad part, must pay more attention. Can’t afford mistakes like that now.* thought Hermione.

As we made our way to maybe actually Hermione's intended destination, I glanced behind me. In that alley, dark shadows moved without people, all light seemingly trapped within its seedy darkness. A shiver escaped me.

“You alright? Cold? Guess you ought not to have any ice cream then. Lets go to gringotts first. Get you sorted out. I think you might find this interesting.” She said curiously.

+++++

Elianne let out a gasp as they walked into the great entrance hall of gringotts.

“Wha...What are they?”

Hermione smiled and thought to herself of her first time in Diagon Alley. Of all the things goblins had been the most surprising.

“Goblins” she answered and smiled back to herself

“What is this place anyway?”

This was a little too much for her, Goblins. Goblins. She hadn’t been prepared for this.

“It’s a bank, wizard bank. Very well guarded as well. Your moneys much safer here than any muggle bank”

How could this be any safer than other banks she thought?

“What’s so special about how they guard it, what do they use?”

“Hmm. Best not to tell you. There are something’s I know, but you wouldn’t like to know. Not just yet. Goblins are probably enough of a shock”

Hermione approached a desk, with a rather old looking goblins sitting behind it.

“Ms. Granger, what may I help you with?” he said apparently a little annoyed at being disturbed.

“I’d like to make a withdrawal, from the Potter vault and I’d also like to set up a direct owl for once a month to Hogwarts, for Elianne M. Potter. I think 20 galleons a month should do it, for now”

As the goblin shuffled round papers, I looked around pondering on it all. What was a direct owl, how much was 20 galleons anyway?

Hermione must have seen my confusion. I felt a relieved, so many questions to ask I’d have felt stupid to have to had asked them all.

“Your father had some money here, it’s yours too of course. I thought you might appreciate some pocket money whilst at school. It gets delivered by owls, quite a new system though. Didn’t have it in my day. They train them very well, have to make sure its not intercepted, so several owls bring it. And 20 galleons should be by far enough to satisfy you each month. I don’t want you spoiled after all.”

“Thanks, wasn’t sure about everything. Is all so…new to me.”

She put her hand on my shoulder and comfortingly led me back over to the desk. Where the goblin appeared to have finished his paperwork.

“Everything is in order. Follow me”

My nerves were getting the better of me. I had absolutely no clue about anything that was happening. It would have been so nice to have some warning of the things to come.

“Where are we going?” I whispered.

“For a ride,” she said with a devilish grin.

+++++

After speeding down to what was almost like the depths of the earth, we had finally stopped in front of, I supposed, my family vault. Feeling rather sick I leaned against my aunt who was quite happily standing straight up still. If only she’d been my mother, I might have inherited her strong stomach.

Maybe it was a ride you got used to. I could only hope.

She did seem happy. Ever since we’d entered gringotts her mind had left the troubled topic of my father and it might have stayed that way if the goblin hadn’t commented on what he did

He twitched his face and coughed, shuffled his feet as he searched for the pocket he had put the key in. finally finding it he turned around before placing the key in the lock.

“Funny,” he said, “this is the second time I’ve this vaults been opened this week. Nothing for years and suddenly so many. Tis strange I say. Know anything of it? For it wasn’t you who opened it first. Vaults don’t usually have two keys.”

Her face paled again as it had this morning. And I sensed her panic, it even worried me now.

“Who opened it the first time?”

“Not really meant to say such things but since you have a key too. Was a bloke, with dark hair. Had a key though so we don’t ask questions mind. Couldn’t say anymore. Get so many people in here, can’t remember everyone”

I heard her breath in deeply, and exhale deeply, trying to calm down. Hermione looked distraught. I cursed that the goblin had ever said anything. I didn’t like seeing her like this. She was my guardian, she was meant to look after me, not the other way round. She blinked back tears forming. I squeezed her hand, and thought about it. So much was happening.

But what was the truth?

One thing unexpected, another that we don’t know about, everything confusing. When would we finally find out?

Leaving gringotts, not even my bag full of money cheered me up. I wanted to take Hermione’s pain away, but I knew only once person could do that. The question was where was he and where had he been for the last eleven years if the letter was true.

~~

Memories Story

~~

##Elianne##

The next month went by uneventfully. We heard no more from anyone except the usual muggle friends.

I’d taken to spending my time reading and practising for school. Not that there was much other than reading to do.

I’d been trying to convince my aunt to let me grow some magical herbs, but I could tell she thoroughly disapproved. Already I knew my best and favourite subjects would be herbology and potions mainly, with transfiguration too, if only could be an animagus one day, however likely that was.

The reason she disapproved was because I didn’t like charms nor arithmancy, her old favourites. Even not being her daughter she still expected me to be just like her. The only surprise for her was when she came into my room and said I should be reading all my school books not just one, most potente potions. She didn’t think she'd hear the answer that I’d read them all already - in less time than she ever could. Maybe something’s are taught inherently, it’s not just in the genes. So in many ways I am her daughter. Glad I’m not though, wouldn't wanted to have inherited the teeth she used to have at my age.

+++++

##Hermione##

The days were long now, in the middle of summer. I often took a stroll in the garden to clear my head, straighten out my thoughts. This had happened more so recently.

The evening air refreshed me, made me feel freed from my troubles. It let me breathe deeply and happily. For a few minutes I could forget. All of it gone.

Most of my memories weren’t good.

A lot of bad things happened in the past. No one would want to know them. I only clung to them slightly, not letting go because I wished to honour the memory of those who suffered. Yet it made me suffer still.

Even with that in mind I could not forget them all. Some would forever linger in the dark recesses of my mind, haunting me.

And in the last month it was harder to ignore those things. They’d been dragged up from their place into real life thoughts.

The dusk light now fading I walked back towards the house.

Seeing a flash of light through the leaves of our small hawthorn bush, I went to find its source.

What I found was a necklace. Shining like silver and gold together at the same time, with a delicate emerald tear at the centre. An all to familiar necklace.

///Hermione’s flashback/// Hogwarts, Christmas day- Year 5//

She awoke to the warmth and unique scent of a lit hearth. Inhaling the smell, she stretched and smiled to herself. Christmas day and no one to spoil it. No Lavender or Parvati. Just her in the whole dormitory. Outside she could see the snow falling, glad though that she was inside.

She practically skipped to her stocking. Wondering what she’d received. There were so many books she’d asked everyone for, despite that she’d be lucky to get one. They were all fed up of getting books, as if it wasn’t the most imaginative present you could be given.

Firstly there was her present from her parents – a mini potions set, no doubt to make up for the fact they were both away on work.

Ron, obviously bored of books had tried to get her something more exciting – what he’d got her was a correctix pen. As you wrote it followed alongside changing spelling and grammar errors, even making comments on your work! Every one was said to be different, with its own personality, meaning you in effect had your own personal tutor.

She had to give him points for inventiveness; she wouldn’t have known to ask for one of them.

From Mrs.Weasley she got an assortment of cakes, sweets and a hand knitted cardigan. Which she would probably find to be nearly identical to Ginny’s.

The last present was Harry’s. It was a small neatly wrapped parcel. Her heart fell, definitely not a book. She hadn’t got a single one this year. She’d have to spend her money on getting them if she wanted to, which of course she did desperately. Not that anyone cared.

She slunk back on her bed. Realizing that she needed to open the present she reached for it and pulled at its string. One tug and the present began to slowly unwrap itself. The bow moved up and around like a snake. It slid back from under the other piece and the paper finally sprung outwards to reveal the most gorgeous necklace Hermione could ever imagine. It sparkled magically even in the dull yellow light of the morning. She sat with her mouth open in awe at it, til the door creaked suddenly.

“Hermione, are you up? Can I come in?”

“Um, yes, sure”

Harry inched through the door wary of her.

“I hope I didn’t wake you”

“No. No, I was just opening your present…”

His eyes glanced at the package open on her bed and to her neck

“Do you want me to put it on for you?”

She looked back at him trying to decide.

“Ok.”

She moved her long hair over shoulder as he approached with the necklace. Fiddling with the clasp he nervously took a few seconds longer than usual to close it, fixing the necklace around her neck. He seemed a little pink in the face, embarrassed probably at not being able to close it properly.

And for unknown reason she blushed too.

A few seconds later, he spoke.

“Do you like it?” His face beamed at her eagerly awaiting the answer

“Yes, yes. It’s wonderful. Feel like I should have got you something a bit better”

He momentarily caught a look of guilt on her

“No. Don’t worry. Your present was great too. I’ve never played wizard battle cards before. I’m sure Ron will teach me, whilst he beats me at it better than wizard chess.”

At that they both shared a small laugh.

//////end flashback////

The necklace she’d been holding fell from her grasp into the gravel on the path. She made no sound or movement as her stared ahead to the darkening sky, a sunset with storm clouds.

Clear except for that.

~

~~

Chapters 6 – 8

~~

Chapter 6

“The Pain of the Past”

##Hermione##

Hermione sat on the couch, sunk about as far back into it as possible.

Tears ran down her face, as she sat there resting her miserable head on the armrest.

Other than the obvious signs of disquietude, she remained blank and closed from all outside phenomena. All but Elianne.

She didn’t move when Elianne entered the room, her eyes flicked up for a moment, that was all.

Elianne silently walked up and sat down next to her. Rubbed her shoulder,

“What’s wrong?”

Finally Hermione proceeded to sit up properly

“I found this”

Elianne shrieked with delight at the piece of jewellery hanging from her hand.

“It’s wonderful. Were did you find it? Who’s is it? Do you think ….”

She trailed off at the look on her aunt’s face

“You father gave it to me. In our fifth year.”

“Well, its lovely. He had good taste.”

Hermione carried on, her voice just as irresolute as it had been originally

“…But I lost it sixth year”

///////Hermione’s Flashback////Hogwarts, Early October - Year 6

She strolled across the field from the exit she’d left, met by the chilling air. It must have been near zero, in the practically winter weather. It was dark and she was only wearing her normal school robes. The wind cut into her, whirling her hair round her head, sweeping harshly over her features.

*How could he have done that to her? It was the most humiliating experience of her life*

He’d probably have followed her. She could picture it in her mind. Any minute now he’d run out rushing after her. Begging for quick forgiveness. As if it barely mattered and could be forgotten in a single second.

*Anyone else but him wouldn’t have known. He should have*

She’d thought he knew her well, and her as well for him.

*Must have been mistaken. If he’d known me even half as well as I’d thought then he’d have understood that Beavers Buns were the worst idea for a practical joke on me. It just rubbed in the old girl she used to be, with buckteeth and bushy hair*

But that’s not the only reason you’re so angry, a little second voice in her head reminded her.

Nevermind. She was too angry now. Was too risky to have a confrontation about it, she’d end up hexing him and getting into trouble.

At least Fred and George would know that their new trick worked. No doubt Colin had taken a picture of her a.k.a beaver girl.

Turning round she sees him coming towards her. Still quite far away.

And she STILL did not want to talk to him. She almost hated him right now.

It would be too hard to stay, so she attempts to hide behind the rocks near the lake.

He’s a long enough distance not to have seen her yet, being rather short sighted.

Even with the time on her side, she hurries to the lakeside hoping she’ll be fast enough to find a suitable place to crouch down in without being seen.

Too late

“Hermione, it that you?”

*Drat. What’s the chance he might miss me? Not great but its there. *

Rushing along the pebbles near the shore, she curses at stumbling.

*If only I had trainers instead of boring, uncomfortable school shoes. *

And it turned out that she’d wished for what would’ve been better.

There was a deafening splash as she slipped over, dropping into the icy water with all her weight behind her.

She hit it before she’d barely had the realization she had lost her footing.

The freezing lake had woken her up from the fury she’d felt. Instead she was annoyed, annoyed beyond words.

He humiliated her

He caused her to be here, in the middle of the lake almost on the coldest night of the year so far, sopping wet, no longer enraged.

This was different. All her petty irritations drawn together. Everything he’d ever done that she’d hated was filling her mind. As the blood that filled her veins, the pressure rising.

“You’re lucky you didn’t hit your head”

He approached her, holding out a hand to help her up.

Which to her surprise she took anyway. Glaring at him at the while. Eyes like needles, piercing his friendly exterior.

“No thanks to you”

He grinned sheepishly and stared down at the ground.

“I know you’re angry but…”

She cut in the sentence sharply, “I don’t want to speak to you”

“I’m sorry, Hermione, it was…” he started his excuse, sounding like he was sincere.

“Where is it?” she scrambled at the surface of her robes.

“What?”

Grabbing at the fabric in hope of her hand fastening around that object.

“My necklace.”

“What about it?”

“ It’s gone. I had it on… before…...I fell in to the lake.” Her face dropped, disappointed.

All he said was “Oh”

Then she thought about it. Once again. Who’s fault was it.

*Great job Harry*

“I’m sure it’s here somewhere. You didn’t fall in at a very deep section, it shouldn’t be difficult to find. In theory at least.” She saw his eyes scouring the water as if he was hunting for the golden snitch.

He might find it.

But he was the one who was really responsible for its loss, he ought to find it anyway.

She made a choice.

She didn’t care if he was sincere. Nothing could quell her thirst for the blunt admittance of the truth.

He started to talk once more whilst looking over the lake

“You know, like I was saying, I’m sorry about earlier, it…” but he didn’t get a chance to say anything further than before.

“No Harry. I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to hear anything from you. I don’t want to speak a word to you. I’m leaving and you WON’T follow me.”

With that she stormed off.

*Who cared about the necklace? If he did he’d look for it. She wasn’t going to, even though it wasn’t like she could get any wetter than she was. *

She walked back to the school as fast as her legs could carry her. Just wanting to be rid of his presence. In a hurry to get away before she turned back and went to have a proper go at him.

She didn’t want that. She could be brutally harsh when she was mad and she really didn’t have the time to patch things up if she said something she might regret.

*Can’t help but think that feelings get in the way. If I had none then I wouldn’t have got angry in the first place and then I wouldn’t risk telling him everything, about everything he does wrong, everything I hate about him. Everything*

What was everything though? She wasn’t sure.

##Harry (in the past)##

He stood watching her walk away from him. As she’d asked he hadn’t followed her.

He’d been stupid. Twice. That prank had been a bad mistake from the moment Ron had suggested it. And going after a mad Hermione was even worse. What had he been thinking?

The one thing though through that entire encounter was that she was a little off.

Hiding something from him. Keeping herself boxed in.

Probably preventing herself from wanting to hex him back to the Stone Age.

With that there was a kind of pressure that she seemed under.

She was angry. But it didn’t blow up, it didn’t all spill out. She bottled it up.

Was she meant to? Girls were meant to be more in touch with their emotions. And even Hermione wasn’t that far removed from your average girl.

What would have happened if she’d stayed, gotten mad. What would she have said to him? Well, it was a mystery now. He’d never know. She’d never tell.

/////end flashback////

“How do you know it’s the same one? Couldn’t there be other’s like it?”

Elianne’s question broke her from her thoughts.

“It’s from him alright. It has an engraving on the back. No one else would know what it said. Just Harry and me.”

She handed the necklace over to Elianne, who held it preciously, turning over the emerald tear to reveal writing on the back

To ‘Mione

-To take all your pain away &

make you happy always-

Love Harry

It was neatly written, very small because of the size of the pendant, either charmed or hand written.

“What does it mean?”

“What do you mean?” she countered

“Well, it’s the necklace Harry gave you. Which you lost. And obviously never found. It can’t be a fake or a copy because it has the engraving. Only you and Harry knew about that. Even if someone had found it, say a Hogwarts student, what would the chance be that they’d know who you were. I’m just pointing out there must be something to it.”

She finished her little dialogue and took a deep breath from the lack of air.

Hermione looked pointedly perplexed, fiddling with the chain of the necklace, seemingly wondering about it.

“I don’t know. Whatever it is. I don’t know”

After that there was only the slinking sound of the repetitive tinkling of the chain, moving from one hand to the other, with no thought about it. Whatsoever.

~

Chapter 7

“Wishing To…”

##Elianne##

One more inch.

An inch, just an inch.

Only an inch to go.

She strained the muscles in her arm trying to reach for the branch.

Desperate to get even a slight grasp of it, so that she could pull the whole thing down and pick those perfectly round, big bulbous berries that hung from it.

Her body gave in and she was forced to slump back down on the grass.

Only allowed to look at them hopeful that she’d get them next time.

Ever since I’d started reading most potente potions I’d come across may normal plants that had very useful witchly applications.

Like the elderberry for example. I’d found out it was used in a low-level magic resistance potion, and was hopeful of making some. I knew I wasn’t allowed to test it against magic even if I was able to do so, but then again I also knew Hermione had graduated meaning she could.

Mind you, it wasn’t the only thing in our little English cottage garden that I could’ve had some fun with.

We had hazel too, but I wasn’t much into divining. Rather unlikely we’d have some treasure buried around here.

Nightshade too hung around the garden, not any use unless I for some reason wanted to feebly attempt making veritasium, the truth potion.

My only other real choice was the snapdragon charm. Supposed to promote graciousness and fascinating in whoever wore it.

She thought idly about which one to use; if I got it right the charm might be useful for the first day at school. Would make it an interesting day at the very least.

From the garden she heard the knocking of the side door. Both her and Hermione went to answer it. The difference being that Elianne rushed towards it getting there first, was greet by her aunt Ginny.

After the brief surprised and kafuffle of her sudden visit, they had retired back to the kitchen for tea and a conversation. The main topic was what had kept her away for so long. And Hermione was tackling it with about as must tact as she could manage.

“It’s not that it’s not nice to see but why now? It’s been years. We’ve only ever had the occasional owl from you”

Elianne looked up. *Good question*

She studied the face of her aunt. She had longer redder hair than it had seemed to before, but then before was quite a while for her now.

*Why hasn’t she seen me since I was eight? and she hasn’t been in a hurry to. So why now*

Ginny pursed her hands in her lap, avoiding their suspecting eyes.

Meekly she returned back to the conversation, swallowing a nervous cough, ready to speak finally.

“I’d heard you’d got news on Harry.”

##Hermione##

Hermione sneaked a look over at Elianne, who was innocently inspecting the kitchen wall.

“Yes. It’s possible. However I’m not sure yet. It isn’t. …clear.”

“That’s strange because Ron told me he’d received an owl from Sirius. He said it was in code or something, he couldn’t make head nor tails of it.”

“Code?” Hermione’s brow furrowed, mind ticked over the possibilities.

“He should try to find out if it needs a password. If it’s from Sirius then he must have intended for Ron to know whatever the word is already. Guesswork might be all that’s required.”

Ginny smiled weakly.

“I’ll try to tell him that. Though he mightn’t want to, he’s been avoiding reality for years. If he thinks it’s about Harry, he won’t do anything. I’m sure.”

Hermione scowled at the thought of Ron and his cowardice. He stayed away in Romania with his dragons. Away from the world in any form. Like dragons were all he could cope with. Was pathetic. She could sympathise, he missed his best friend, she knew he did. But his approach solved nothing. It wasted what he had, what Harry wanted everyone to enjoy. Life, free and good. Maybe the problem was that Ron didn’t think it was good anymore.

“That’s your brothers choice Ginny. I’m sorry if his mistakes fall on you. Perhaps he’d give you the letter. And you could try to break the code.”

Her composition changed so much at Hermione’s suggestion. Her eyes distantly happy, a small smile in them.

“Yes. And would you help me? I know I’m less likely to get it. Ron wouldn’t help me of course and you’re so clever just like you’ve always been.”

“Perhaps. It depends. I have work and other duties. Elianne’s going to Hogwarts in a week or two. But it doesn’t matter anyway, not now, not until you speak to Ron.”

##Elianne##

Elianne watched her aunts from the window. They stood in the drive chatting as they prepared to say goodbye.

The subject of her father hadn’t lasted too long; they’d soon gotten off it and had caught up on each other’s recent events.

However I was more interested in that too less covered idea. That my father was alive.

No one knew. Some wanted to, some didn’t.

There was Ginny, so eager. And her brother Ron, not wanting to know for the pain that could be.

So that was why my aunt had visited us. Not so much out of caring as of curiosity.

The more interesting thing was the way Hermione had avoided agreeing to help with the password. Didn’t she want to know?

I’d have thought in the past that she’d be the first, the most willing to find out the truth of the matter.

Was she succumbing to that suggestion that my godfather believed life had given him. Not to seek anything more. Not to care anymore. Incase it got worse.

I really didn’t want to entertain these kinds of thoughts. They depressed me. I wanted to know. Even if she didn’t, I did.

He was MY father. It had become almost a right that I know him if he was alive.

If he was alive, I would not be denied that possibility.

And I wanted him to be alive.

There were no words for the pain of the thought that he wasn’t, that the past 11 years had been true. That they would also be the future.

I did the only thing that made me feel better. I sat underneath the beech tree that stood at the bottom of the garden. I sat and closed my eyes and prayed that he was still.

I prayed for myself and for Hermione; for Ron; for my father’s friends; for every person who held my father in their heart. He wasn’t just my father, he was that courage and bravery. He was their hope.

Mine too.

I prayed that my wish would have the strength of all those who had his hope. With every bit of it adding up to something that could not be refused.

~

Chapter 8

“A Walk Inside the Mind”

##Hermione##

Ginny had finally departed. They must have been talking for hours; it seemed strangely Ginny was keen to chat.

She’d heard all about all the new books Ginny had read in her job at a publishers, who’s children where going to Hogwarts this year, how the joke shop was doing, even a few occasional things about Ron’s research and Molly’s attempts to get Percy and Penelope to marry.

They’d never been that close since the war. Memories hurt everyone. *Not just me* she reminded herself.

Elianne was outside under the beech tree staring into space. Hermione had no idea what she was doing but she felt it best to leave Elianne to herself.

She’d been more solitary recently.

It wasn’t good to disturb her.

Hermione made her way instead to her bedroom.

She meant only to rest for a few minutes.

She’d need to call in Elianne eventually. Couldn’t have her up all night when school wasn’t that far in the future.

But it had been an exhausting day and something else pulled her into sleep despite her own will to stay awake

--------

And in the dreams

They see

What was

And what must be

The lights that guide

In every branch

To every way

Whose is which

What is the way

The day escapes

The tenuous sight

From the hold of those

Who’d seek theirs

But fate can always change

-------

+++++

Her eyes felt heavy.

All around her was blurred.

She spotted a light. Moving away.

It was above the ground. Luminescent.

She followed it, hoping that it leaded her to a place less confusing.

Walking along, her eyes recovered.

She saw woods, all around in the darkness of dusk. The sky’s light was fading. Pale and sickening.

With the floor covered in fauna.

She crouched down examining them, bluebells.

She stroked the petals wondering where she was, there were no bluebell woods around her area. Come to think of it, there were no woods anything like this.

No.

These woods were old.

For as far as the eye could see there were only the trees and the coating of bluebells to the forest.

She stood still, not sure what to do. The light had gone away. Either direction looked the same to her. There was no point to trying to find her way back.

Then at once there was a flurry of lights flying in the air around her, battering past her and in circles. Fairies.

All pale blue in colour and silvery. Fluttering past.

And through the flurry of wings she saw a person running in between the trees near her.

She sprinted out of the globe of fairies towards them.

She knew he could tell her what to do, where to go.

Catching up she could see they were running out of breath, she would get to him soon.

She could go home soon. She would have no trouble out running him. She felt fine, not a single problem. She ran and ran on. But he would not be able to.

She found herself calling out to him

“Harry!”

Surprised at this she stopped.

He fled away.

All she could do was watch his getting further and further from her.

Her eyes stayed on him. To her she was the one getting further away. He was simply carrying on.

She was interrupted from the strange thoughts that entered her mind by a single ringing.

A small bell tinkering.

Sounding sweet at first, it grew stronger, louder. More frequent.

Til she was on the floor, paralysed. Unsure of what this was. Confused as ever, in the woods that once more were that dark spiteful blue and nauseating.

The bells rang out shrilly, piercing her ears with their ominous peal.

*Make it stop*

++++

She gasped and clasped at the covers, ambling for breath. Hers short and sharp, frightened. What was that?

A dream, answered.

*Just a dream*

The memory of it came back to her; Harry was in it.

And the bluebells, the ringing. The awful feeling like she was going to die.

She felt comforted by the fact she was alive, or appeared to be.

The bluebells.

Bluebells. Hmm. Odd to dream of. She was sure they were meant to mean something. Something she’d learned at school.

Though if that had come from Trelawney then it wouldn’t mean anything.

All superstition.

And the awful feeling like she was going to die.

Probably just some silly association of the mind.

~

~

Chapters 9 and 10

~

Chapter 9

“God’s Gift”

##Hermione##

She didn’t flinch much as a tawny owl fluttered in through the window, flying in past her on its way to Elianne’s room. She’d already had quite a few letters, mostly from old family friends congratulating her on getting into Hogwarts. She may not have known them personally but Elianne loved to get letters from people by owl.

In fact molly had already sent over a package after hearing about it from Ginny.

No jumpers or cardigans had resided in it luckily, or perhaps Errol wouldn’t have made it there alive. The old owl was still with them, not much changed since their days at Hogwarts when it had been equally unreliable. If not for the magic in it the poor owl would have died long ago.

A few minutes later followed a series of excited shrieks, with led Elianne out of her bedroom and in front of Hermione practically begging her.

“Please, please can I. Can I? Please….” She pleaded, waving the letter in Hermione's face.

Frowning in a we’ll-see manner she snatched the moving letter out of the girls hand and inspected it.

She peered over the top of the piece of parchment at Elianne’s puppy dogface. Who was anxiously waiting the answer.

“Yes, you may join the course…”

This elicited cries of joy and many hurried thank yous from her daughter

“…but it is extracurricular. Your grades are not to suffer you hear. I will pay for the books; we have to go to get a few more things anyway. BUT the minute I see your grades dropping from what they should be, then you’ll stop it immediately.

Elianne grasped her into a wide choking hug at this.

Hermione gave in to it, patting her on the back and hugging back. She knew better than to resist

Adding one last comment “Just make sure it’s worth it.”

This only made Elianne tighten her hold.

“Oh it is. The new history of magic teacher’s great. And I’d just die if I didn’t get to do the mythology course. You know its one of my favourite things.”

At that an eyebrow went up.

“Well, actually I thought you’d grow out of liking that a few years ago.”

For that she earned a prod in the armpit, which caused her to topple over onto the sofa in ticklish laughter

Elianne stood over her arms on her hips

“I would have thought you’d know me better than that”

They both laughed collapsing into a fake tussle over who was right and who was wrong, happy for once.

+++++

##Elianne##

They made their way through the crowded alley past wizards, witches and the stalls hanging outsides the shops, to their final stop.

On the sign was Ollivanders wands written with a flourish in gold, which at one time must have looked impressive. Peeling as it was the sign pointed to rather more pressing fact that it was many millennia established.

Walking in they were greeted by a very old and grey haired man, who still looked rather on edge and curious.

“Ah, Miss Granger. Hogwarts?”

Hermione smiled and nodded to him

Then he addressed her

“Hello young Ms., you know your mother had a very special wand, it shall be interesting to see what you find”

Hermione blushed at this and stumbled with the words as she tried to tell him otherwise

“No, she’s not my daughter. Well, yes, she is but no. Not my biological daughter”

Having found her words once more she introduced us

“El, this is Mr Ollivander, Mr Ollivander this is Elianne Potter.”

His eyes lit up at the mention of her name, a phenomena that she hadn’t yet gotten used to.

“Potter you say. The daughter of the marvellous Harry Potter? Yes. I remember your father as well. Had an equally interesting wand. Very…unique. As was he.”

At that he shuffled to behind the counter and started on the job of wand searching.

He returned and handed a small grey carton much like a shoebox to her.

By now his whole face was alight with excitement. It stayed buried inside but she could feel the glow of him as he dared to wonder whatever thoughts he had

“Let see shall we what you make of this specimen”

He took out a small slim piece of wood, a dark red colour.

“Cherry, 9 and ½ inches, dragon heart string.”

She held out her hand and had barely come into contact with the tip of it before he snatched it away.

“No good.”

He hurried away and came back with several more boxes, putting the previous one to the side.

“Hazel, 7 inches, mermaid scale”

She took the silvery rainbowed stick and with a flick of the wrist had instantly caused chaos in the store; the pile of boxes in the corner went “ploof” and smoked somewhat.

So that wand went back in its box. And the next too

And the next.

It was taking ages. Hermione had warned me it often did but this seemed excessively long. If not for the consequences of the wands each being interesting in their own right I would have been bored by now.

“Rowan, 10 inches, Nereid hair”

I picked the wand up in my hands nonchalantly, expecting some explosion or other to happen and for it to be snatched right back out of my hand.

Nothing did. And both of them were looking expectantly at me, waiting for the flick of the wrist and the answer to the never-ending search.

I all but closed my eyes, squinting so much I could just about see and waved it.

And it was magic.

Little golden spheres and sparks erupted gracefully from the end of the wand and arranged themselves, forming what looked like a sparkling golden model of the solar system. Each one of the planets moving ever so slightly in an orbit and it even had comets, asteroids and most amazingly a chariot. A chariot of the gods, racing over and around it. The whip slashing. Horses galloping onwards fevered. Controlled by a faceless female clad in gladiators armour.

“Rowan and nereid hair, very fluid, intuitive, good for summoning”

Ollivander didn’t take the wand away. He smiled satisfied and asked us to come over to the desk. His job finished for our encounter.

My aunt sorted out the bill as I stood in the shop staring at the ever-fading magical model of the stars. It was so unbelievable to think I’d done that. I was in awe. I was only a beginner. What could she do? What about the teachers too? Anyone on the street could do even better than that. I was stunned. Never had I known something all encompassingly beautiful that I too could do. It wasn’t like the rose or the tree that I could nurture but only from its design to its potential. I could make things. Out of nothing but energy and words. Simple ingredients that could make almost anything.

The only thing they could not do was raise the dead. My smile faded at that. Perhaps that alone would make up for any denial of the rest. I could give up the magic I’d seen, if maybe I could instead have the power to have my father again. There was probably a reason for that though, for not being able to do that. Some great and profound reason, that left me suffering.

I turned to my aunt as she walked to me and towards the door.

My thoughts went back to what the man had said.

“What was your wand like?”

She glanced at me.

“Nothing fascinating really.”

“But he said…”

She was playing it down. Why shouldn’t I know? She’d told me everything else.

“Caladrius and dogwood. Now can we go.”?

“Fine” I glowered a little, wondering why those few words had been so hard to say for her.

/////////////Hermione’s flashback//// Diagon alley, Ollivander’s - before year one

A gentle voice called to her, she turned to see her mother

“Hermione, here it is. The shop, to the left”

They all looked at its visage

An old, incredibly old storefront met their gaze.

And inside it they met a quite old man, who acted odd but certainly seemed to know what he was doing.

Whilst Hermione was explained wands, her parents were off getting other shopping for her school year.

She’d suggested they go, as the man seemed to unnerve her mother. Besides that he was taking along time explaining all about the wand cores and the length and many other things that were apparently vital. She had of course asked Ollivander to do this. She was muggle-born and afraid that if she didn’t ask then everyone else would know and not her.

Eventually they had gotten onto the wand. Her wand.

She tried out so many. Disillusioned as to why none of them so far had done anything. But he didn’t care; he carried on with more and more boxes. Not concerned it appeared with the fact she had no magical talent. Maybe they’d got it wrong. She wasn’t a witch at all. Just a peculiar muggle. Or a muggle born squib.

Still she tried all he presented her with, wondering when he’d give up.

On what looked to be almost the last one he had left in the shop front something happened. She felt a chill of energy when she held it. He too noticed it.

She was thrilled, and gave the wand a short happy flick.

The wand tingled with energy. And out of it light burst forth. Swirling to the sky, or at least the ceiling. And dropping eloquently like raindrops, that felt real to the touch.

She screamed with delight to herself, hands to her mouth and jumping up and down.

She was a witch! She was a witch” and she had never been happier.

He looked at her. Creepily.

“It is a wonderful gift you have.”

She replied unsure of what to say

“Pardon? I don’t know what you mean”

“The wand, it carried very powerful magic. Very beautiful magic. Divine talent. Exquisite. That would be why none other than that would work.”

“You have talent,” he repeated eerily.

She cautiously smiled, hoping, trying not to offend him

“Thank you”

He changed back to his normal self in an instant. Back to business, his voice curious as before and with only a small hint of that sharp foreseeing tone she’d encountered. Yet she didn’t know why she had. What was the wand anyway?

As if reading her mind he stated its qualities

“Dogwood and caladrius feather. Good for healing charms and defence, durable, long lasting. It will serve you well.”

She hobbled forward to the desk and paid for the wand quickly as possible. Scared he’d say anything else strange or worse take it back.

Out of the musty shop she relaxed, inhaling deeply. She felt a little better.

She moved her hand out of her pocket, peering a bit at the wand she still held securely. Its gold engravings flashed in the sun and she put it back.

Confident that it was the right one. That she was the right one.

~~

For when you are not

You seek to be

What was meant

No matter what that means

And maybe

You are something else

Something more

That becomes ever ignored

For all that matters to you

Is being who you think you are

All because you do not know

The truth

You see the picture, that you copy

Wishing, wanting

Not using your sight

Maybe then there would be

The real delight

You are special

Just as you may be

Something else

Carried

Unseen

~~

Chapter 10

“It’s A Pleasure”

##Hermione##

There was a flurry of owls and people back and forth in the house that day. Hermione merely sat on the sofa more or less ignoring it.

Molly Weasley had come over to help with Hogwarts and be there for moral support when it was time to say goodbye, but had basically taken over Hermione attempts at organising Elianne.

Hermione had to hand it to her, and to Ginny for being one of those subjected to the same treatment previously, that she was a wiz at getting it all sorted.

Every now and then there would be Ginny or molly rushing around the house searching for something or the other. And there seemed to be few minutes when an owl didn’t fly past with a letter going out or a package going in.

Eventually all three of them emerged into the living room, Ginny and Elianne looking rather puffed out carrying the large Hogwarts trunk. Molly then had signalled the urgentness of time and they’d all piled into the kitchen to floo themselves to the nearest wizard network chimney to the station, a pub called The Wise-old Hat.

Hermione could only remember being insanely excited when she had got to platform 9¾ for the first time. But as a parent she felt the slow and quiet dread of the fact Elianne was leaving. Gladfully she held onto Molly and Ginny as they entered the private platform with them. Elianne in front of all, and immediately in awe at the invisible barrier and then with the gigantic steam train that was chugging away a little in preparation for the journey.

The goodbyes were quick and sweet. She only held onto the girl for a few seconds, afraid that any more would both embarrass her and make the letting go even harder.

And from then on Elianne had begun the adventure that was Hogwart’s. Without her.

+++++

##Elianne##

She’d found it hard to believe that there was a platform between 9 and 10, between the air near the wall and the supposedly solid brick she presumed it was. Yet wizards had surprised her even more than before. First there was travelling by chimneys, then through walls though she knew the wall wasn’t ever really there. Only invisible unless you knew where it was. It was another one of the mysteries solved by “Hogwart’s: A Further History”. A book that her aunt herself had written. Not that Elianne ever remembered her mentioning it, as she would have probably hidden it from her in those days.

+++++

After saying and waving goodbye, Elianne had secured herself a neat little compartment with no one else in it so far. That so far hadn’t lasted long before a short girl emerged from behind the door and smiled politely, inquiring if she could use this compartment too.

The girl was quite short for their age, as Elianne presumed she was, with dark blond hair and grey-blue eyes. Her pretty face smiled happily at her for a few nervous seconds before introducing herself.

“Hi. I'm Lucretia Malfoy. I'm so glad you didn’t mind me sitting in here. A few people already refused. I suppose some of them don’t want to socialise with first years.”

Taking the proffered hand, she shook it and introduced herself to the girl too.

“I'm Elianne potter. It’s really good that I’ve found another first year, I was afraid I wouldn’t know anybody. I’ve only just found out I'm a witch a few months ago.”

Lucretia brightened up considerably at the mention of this.

“Me too. I'm adopted. I knew I was a witch though but I never grew up knowing what it meant. My parents decided not to tell me anything till just before. That is my adoptive parents I mean. My real ones, I see them sometimes but I’d rather not and they’d rather not.”

This didn’t seem to upset Lucretia much. It seemed a shame she had tow sets of parents and only cared for one. But then not all parents were as nice as they should be.

Elianne couldn’t help but think bad parents were something above not knowing any. It was curious that Lucretia wasn’t very keen on her real parents.

“How come you don’t like them?”

“They had a bad break-up, they can’t stand each other. Wasn’t exactly a good match in the first place. And I remind them of each other. Hence they don’t like to see me. That’s why I don’t live with either of them. And besides my mother’s a horror. And my father, not so bad but bitter. He has a dark past, my family does. I think that’s why no one will let me sit with them.”

Elianne sat, not saying anything. At least some one else had a life just as complicated as hers.

“Sorry if I rambled” said Lucretia, blushing slightly “ I do that when I'm nervous, and right now, I'm so nervous.”

“Me too.”

Both of them noticeably happier that they weren’t the only one’s

+++++

When the train reached the station, hundreds of students in plain black robes filed out. Spilling onto Hogsmeade platform, where the first years were separated from the rest and led to the boats to cross the lake to the school.

They waited outside the great hall. Lucretia and Elianne standing together. A crowd was congregated around a tall brown haired girl who was showing off her ornately engraved wand, complete with family crest.

Lucretia rolled her eyes at this, and slyly commented, “I'm surprised she has any wand left to do magic with. If she even could”

Elianne’s eyes danced back and forth between Lucretia and the girl, she sensed something more going on

Lucretia obliged

“She’s my step sister. Patricia Parkinson. My mother remarried and her step daughter happened to be a muggle-born witch. She’s just as horrible as my mother too. And insists on taking the Parkinson name despite the fact she has none of the blood in her. Personally I’d be embarrassed to have that name, not proud.”

Lucretia turned away from the scene disgusted. And not likely to talk to anyone it seemed.

Elianne’s attention changed towards another girl standing near by. She was freckled with fair hair and looked so completely out of place. Her eyes peered up feebly at the ceiling of the entrance hall, almost scared of it. she thought of saying hello but feared the girl might be frightened if she said anything suddenly.

It wasn’t long though til they were all escorted into the great hall, filled with all the other students who sat each at one of the four house tables. Elianne hadn’t taken much time to think about what house she wanted to be in. it didn’t seem to matter too much though, especially nowadays. Even Slytherin wasn’t considered too bad now there were no deatheaters. People still seemed to fear it for the possibility of dark wizards. But no one could be worse than Voldemort. And he was gone.

One of the teachers stepped forward and placed the sorting hat on the small stool that stood affront the room.

Its wide rim formed a great big smiling mouth and it proceeded to sing its song.

See the musty crusty me,

I'm the famous hat of Hogwarts

Old as old can be

And every student that there is

Has to pass on by my way

For each and all

Short and tall

I, the sorting hat get to say

Where you belong

And have to stay

If you’re clever

And controlled

Ravenclaws a must

But if you’re loyal

And likeable

It’s got to be hufflepuff

And for those who’re sly

Who wish to reach the sky

I should shout

Slytherins the house to be

And if you’re all but none of those

If you’re strong and brave

Proud I’d be to call

You’re a gryffindor!

And which ever I shall place thee in

For every reward and sin

Your house is the family here

So, drink up merrily the butterbeer

And remember, remember, don’t forget

There’s much fun to come yet

Most of the first years watched in wonder at it, though a few like the rest of the students were expecting this and weren’t as impressed.

After that each of the first years got called up to the hat and it would bellow out there house.

ARRAN, Charlette - Ravenclaw

BOREAS, Nathan - hufflepuff

BROWN, Jason - Hufflepuff

CADMUS, Athena – gryffindor

COREULA, Perseus - gryffindor

DAURO, Helen - slytherin

ELLINS, Anthony – slytherin

ELVEN, Cassandra

Then came the fair-haired girl, who stepped up quite slowly.

Barely on her head it called “gryffindor” and she sweetly smiled genuinely.

FINCH, Daphne -hufflepuff

GREGORY, Horatio – ravenclaw

GRESHEM, Michael – hufflepuff

GROSCHL, Anastis – ravenclaw

GROSCHL, Ayran – gryffindor

HINKLEY, Flora – gryffindor

IMAV, Joshua – slytherin

JONES, Hector – ravenclaw

KRISTENSON, Damien – gryffindor

KRISTENSON, Leander - slytherin

MALFOY, Lucretia

Who seemed relieved when it announced “ravenclaw”

PARKINSON, Patricia

The snobbish step-sister went in “slytherin” and looked very, very proud of it. Lucretia who was by now sitting at the Ravenclaw table smiled happily too, at not having the unfortunate problem of her relation in the same house, as if that would be possible with her.

POTTER, Elianne

Now the fact that it shouted “gryffindor” wasn’t too bad, nor the smiles of a few teachers and her new housemates. She however hadn’t expected the commotion at her name. There was whispering all over the hall from the minute her name was mentioned and even still when the hat had shouted out her house. She stared uncertainly out into the hall. Not happy at the attention.

Walking towards the table, all the Gryffindors appeared to be trying there best not to shout out hurrah or start screaming about getting the famous Elianne Potter.

She was only his daughter, what had it been like for him. No one had ever tried to kill her. Yet when her father lived on after the unforgivable curse he’d been subjected to, he must have had twice the welcome. Twice the hassle, twice the curse of being expected and adored by those who didn’t know you.

She wasn’t being praised or loved on who she was.

So she wasn’t smiling at them when she sat down. Instead her face was a stern acceptance that she was here, this didn’t put them off. They carried on talking quietly about her even next to her whilst the ceremony went on.

PRICE, Georgia – slytherin

PRINCE, Electra - gryffindor

QUILLET, Paris - hufflepuff

WILLIS, Philip - ravenclaw

XALIS, Dido - gryffindor

Now all of them were sorted. There were a few standard announcements as her housemates described, about the third floor and the forbidden forrest . The feast commenced.

The bowls and plates were piled high in an instant. And the ravished students grabbed onto the sumptuous food eagerly.

+++++

She’d learned plenty at dinner already and from the Historys of Hogwarts books, so the tour on the way to their dormitories was not too exciting for her. She wasn’t the only one. The girl she now knew to be called Cassandra was looking bored too. She smiled at her. Cassandra wandered over and whispered to her.

“I know”

They glanced up at the guide, a seventh year prefect, who was practically quoting word for word with the Hogwarts a history’s version. Which was fine for most of the group who’d never read it, but both of them had and he wasn’t even quoting it in an interesting manner. Just word for word monotone, which if you already knew about the interesting bits, was very extremely irritating.

They sank into giggles as he moved on to the next thrilling paragraph.

They’d struck a friendship of sorts at dinner. Cassandra wasn’t nearly as shy as she’d first thought her. Though Elianne had been nearly the only one she’d talked to on the table during the feast.

They gradually moved on up the stairs to the gryffindor common room. After of course meeting the famous fat pink lady, though she did not liked to be called that so neither of them dared say it anywhere near her. The password this week was “jugglejiffer”

Immediately they were to go to there respective dormitories. Elianne was to her joy in the same dormitory as Cassandra and two other girls, Dido and Flora.

They all stayed awake for a little while, talking amongst themselves about the next day and what they’d eaten at the feast, who they hoped would be in their classes. Flora seemed very smitten with Damien Kristenson, though Elianne didn’t know how flora could tell which one of the identical twins he was.

At that they decided that tomorrow required rest and beauty sleep, especially for those who wanted to impress certain boys.

Elianne fell very satisfied into a dreamless sleep. Hoping lessons would be as fun as she wished they would.

~

~

Chapters 11 and 12

~

Chapter 11

“First Impressions”

##Elianne##

She’d heard very mixed things about the professor of potions at Hogwarts.

First thing after breakfast she’d actually be able to judge for herself. Much to most Gryffindors dislike for her year their timetables were marked as double potions for today’s mornings lessons.

For Elianne however it was a treat. Potions was her forte, she knew already. Not so far removed from cooking in a way. And if potions were likened to cookery, professor Snape would be the worlds best chef, who tolerated no deviation from the recipe.

They all got to the class earlier than stated, knowing Snape would be the likeliest of all the teachers to knock marks of Gryffindors if they weren’t exactly precisely on time.

He ushered the quiet line on students into the potions lab.

They all sat down in perfect silence.

He smiled, in the way that most would call barely lifting the corners of his mouth.

His eyes shone in anticipation. He began his speech. The speech that every year of Hogwarts knows since he started teaching.

“You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion-making. As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic. I don’t expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses… I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death – if you aren’t as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach.”

The class was in fearful silence. A few students even from Slytherin gulped.

The lessons began well. Nothing much happened until they got to the actual potion making.

It would have been alright if only everyone read the instructions properly.

But no one seemed to. At the end of the lesson Snape had taken off about 20 points from Gryffindor. Not that anyone cared as they filed out of the room, they all wanted to get away from the potions master.

Though she did not share their fear of him she was leaving the classroom eager not to be late for her next lesson by missing lunch.

Snape suddenly and not so loudly announced

“Miss Potter, please stay behind.”

She gulped. Had she done something wrong? Her not being afraid of him was mainly based on her knowing she was good at potions, that he had nothing to criticise her on.

What was it? The potion had worked out fine. He certainly hadn’t taken any points off for hers and Joshua’s potion.

Snape looked idly and unamused at her. She sat down at a desk, with him towering over her in black. Ten years on and he did not look that dissimilar to what had been described to her. His hair was lank and for the main part black, now with a few specks of grey hair.

“Miss Potter. You may have noticed I did not deduct any points off of you in today’s lesson. Do you know why that is?”

She shook her head unable to suggest a good reason.

“Despite my history of not being too fond of gryffindors and in particular your father when he attended this school, I find myself being what some would call pleasant to you. Your father was a trouble-maker, no doubt about it. You however are an exceptional student. Your potions work is beyond what I’d expect for a normal dunderhead of a first year student. You have surpassed my expectations. That does not happen very often.

For this she had at least a small reply

“Potions is my favourite subject, sir”

She smiled weakly. Wondering what he’d make of that.

He smiled somewhat too.

“Not many students would agree with you on that. May I ask who you were brought up by?”

“Hermione Granger”

“Miss Granger. That does explain a lot. You’re recital of the textbook should have led me to that conclusion myself. Now it seems obvious.”

Again the infamous Snape, smiled, at least in his own way.

Something of the past amused him. She was aware that didn’t happen often either.

So she took the opportunity. He was in a relatively good mood. She was good enough of a student of his. One question wouldn’t hurt. Maybe he’d answer.

“Did you know my mother?”

Snape seemed to sour at this. Any hint of a smile faded as quick as lightning. And his voice too, there left that inflection of humour.

“I was…fortunate…. enough to have met her once. Though I did not know her. She acted very much like an archetypal Slytherin, in my opinion”

Elianne didn’t know what to make of that comment.

“Was she at Hogwarts?”

“Not to my knowledge, no. I doubt it.”

“Why did you say she was like a Slytherin, was she good at potions?”

His pale face reflected back at her before replying sullenly

“Possibly. Who knows”

He stormed out of the room without a further word.

Elianne walked out confused by Snape’s words.

It was almost like he didn’t like or trust her mother.

Could it be because he thought it was one more defeat.

A Gryffindor and Slytherin romance.

Uniting of the houses, goes against his principles. Snape was Slytherin house head. And he did think her mother would have been a Slytherin. Maybe that was what bugged him.

Who knows.

She slunk off to lunch, pondering what to include in her letter home.

The food would have provided a good opportunity to think about it but a strange announcement captured her attention better.

She seemed to have missed it but the whole hall was buzzing with excitement. The Gryffindor girl next to her suddenly burst out into a great smile and pronounced

“Isn’t it great”

“What’s great”

“They’re having a Pax Omnia ball, for all the years above four.”

If she hadn’t been more distracted by what it meant she would have thought more closely about not being able to go to it

“What’s Pax Omnia day?”

The girl looked at her like she was crazy

“Pax Omnia, all peace day. You know, they declared it a day of celebration when you-know-who was proclaimed dead. It’s next week. Such short notice for a ball. Still, it’ll be great fun. Well not for you, you can’t go. But I can. No idea who I’ll ask. Or who’ll ask me”

The girl rambled on and on, to her and the others near her seat.

Elianne just sat thinking about it. Why didn’t she know about it?

She’d never been told, not in all the explaining everyone she knew had done in the past month or so. Not at all. What was so special about the day really? Why hide it.

~

Chapter 12

“What Could Have Been”

~~~

For every hero

There is

One person

Who wishes

That they hadn’t had to die

However great their feat

For every hero

For all the world

That rejoices

There will be

One person

Crying silently

That it’s unfair

~~

##Hermione##

That week had been a wash over her head. Without Elianne she didn’t know what to do. There was always work but what else was there when work was too much. There was no one else to talk to.

She was alone.

And the clock ticked over and over, reminding her of the emptiness.

And the page of calendar reminded her further.

That it was time once again.

So she went over to the window, cleared the pane and glanced out to see a few odd lights in the sky. Anyone else would have thought them to be fireworks but she knew better.

They were wizardry.

Magic to express the happiness all others felt on this night.

This was a day of celebration for every one else.

A day to be glad and happy.

For her it was the one day that hurt more than most.

She took out one small candle and lit it in silence. Her face grimmer than it ever was.

Her candle was plain, she did not celebrate. She mourned.

It was the day they stopped looking for him, when they closed the book. When the war was officially over.

////flashbacks ////The Hag’s Head, Early July –roughly one year after graduation

In the background a fire crackled and there was a general cheer to the place. Here and there, there were people sitting drinking butterbeer and pumpkin juice. And in that general cheer there was a fear. The sort of fear that belonged no more. Though they were yet to know. Only a few did.

She sat at the table, hands cupped together tightly, waiting sorrowfully for the girl. She called her a girl still despite the fact she had long since grown up into a woman, whom she herself had hoped to work with, no longer a student but perhaps a teacher one day.

Maybe, but the chances were slim. This changed everything, she knew. None of them would be the same again. This was worse than any of the times before. There was no mistake.

A young woman approached the table, with long brown hair tied rather haphazardly into a thick plait. She wore plain yet elegant robes; there was not a sign on her that spoke of what she was. She looked so normal. Unfitting of her fate, the news she would receive.

When she reached the table she put out her right hand, as did the occupant and they both shook hands in a friendly way.

The old teacher smiled primly at her, realizing as she looked upon her that her words would change that young woman beyond anything she’d ever imagined. Her heart stuttered briefly at the thought. Knowing it was for the best that she be the one to tell her.

However she couldn’t do it. Not right away. Hermione smiled prettily at her and her insides sunk once more at the news she had.

“So nice to see you again miss granger.”

She beamed back at her

“Its good to see you too professor McGonagoll. However, I was wondering why exactly you called me here.”

“Please call me Minerva, its only fitting since we may well be working together soon. And yes. A good question.”

Which the witch proceeded not to answer.

“I’d like to congratulate you on the publication of your book. Fascinating. I always knew you’d end up writing something, you certainly read enough textbooks to write one.”

Hermione blushed from across the table. Looking forever thrilled at the fact her old teacher was openly praising her new work.

“Thank you. Well, I always thought that the wizarding world badly needed a clearer insight into the muggle world. It’s so misunderstood and frankly it’s quite important that they know. What if they got stuck in it, they’d not know the difference between a telephone and a shaver. Muggle studies is such an ignored area of study.”

Minerva McGonagill smiled slightly at the words, such little comfort as they were to her. All the happiness in Hermione present was hanging by a thread, dependant n the rather harsh words she would have to recite to her. The words that would cut through the thin thread like a razor, letting her whole world drop into the unknown. Into a sea of despair.

“It was a very brave decision to publish that book. In the times we are in.”

For once she made no mention of Voldemort. Only she knew the truth so far, but he wasn’t really relevant now.

“Well I figured that the world needed it, and I don’t want to deprive people of something necessary even if a few do go around trying to…spoil it for all the rest. Who ever they may be.”

How would she take it? Hermione was strong. But no one could come out of it unaffected. Whatever, whoever. No one could be anything other than miserable at the news. And she would find out sooner or later. Better at least not to be later. Not to come from some insolent thug in the street, who didn’t know the meaning of the name or of the sacrifice. Of the pain they’d inflict.

She testily opened the topic, a little of topic for the real idea.

“Have you heard from Harry lately?”

Hermione smile faded not so gradually. Eyes misted over to cold. And her voice replied evenly

“A week or two ago. He was talking about me being one of Elianne’s godmothers. And I don’t think I can persuade him otherwise”

She seemed to lighten up at the mention of Elianne. At least that was something.

“I'm sure you’d take on that responsibility very well and I'm sorry to have to inform you of something else, that is quite close to what we speak of”

And Hermione had sat there.

“As you know Harry and family went into hiding like they had planned, about a week ago. But Voldemort somehow found them and….”

Hearing the words.

“We think someone betrayed them. Ron Weasley was their secret keeper. He was the ONLY one who knew where they were. No one wants to believe it. The ministry are questioning him. They’re suggesting it was some kind of mind control. But he point blank denies it. Only one person truly believes he had nothing to do with it. Of course Ron has his own ideas about what happened. Though they think he’s trying to shift the blame off himself. No one knows really what happened, it could have been anything really….”

Not saying anything.

“The whole area they were in is completely destroyed. Both of them are dead. There is no more Voldemort. And sadly, there is no more of Harry Potter either. Nor his wife. Only Elianne is left…”

Nodding in the appropriate places

“And as your responsibility as laid out in Harry’s will, you are the only person left to look after her. Her other godparents are both in either way indisposed or incapable of taking her in. that leaves you as the sole choice and therefore legal in the muggle sense guardian of Miss Elianne Jane May Potter…...”

###

She’d apparated out of there as soon as she could. Wanting to hear no more of the saddened voice that had told her of her deepest nightmares come true.

The war was over.

The threat was gone.

It should have been happy.

But it wasn’t

Her whole world was upside down, twisted round like a Yolo’s tongue-buster lolly. At every corner there was another crack, another turn until you lost yourself in it. Unsure where to go, what to do. Stuck absolutely where you were. And that place wasn’t nice.

The place this time was living hell.

Her friends were gone. Her best friend in the world dead, her other best friend either responsible or framed for the predicament of the first.

She hadn’t said anything in the pub. But now she was alone. Completely alone. Like she would be from now on.

Because they hadn’t had that happy ending.

Hadn’t got the choice of growing up together, of having lives and loves and fun times together.

Hadn’t even had the choice to grow up and apart from each other.

Just gone.

Gone forever.

With just enough left to remind her of him.

/////end flashback//////////

That was how it had been. Nights of crying. She almost had forgotten to meet with McGonagoll the following week to collect Elianne and make it formal.

That’s what had been the reminder. Elianne was that piece of the Potters that lived on to remind her and in that time of misery she had been that remind of the world, of life, of why she must go on. Why she couldn’t collapse into her own torn up dreamland.

And it had all changed her life.

She had a responsibility far too young. She’d not planned on having children herself for years, she was going to become the charms assistant at Hogwarts, a new position allowing her to carry on from Flitwick when he retired in a year or two’s time from then.

But she had not carried on to do that. Elianne had become more important.

Instead of being an eminent professor, she became a small time journalist and column writer for many wizarding and muggle newspapers and magazines. With that and the book she had published previously that had been just enough to keep them in good stead.

Her life could have been very different had Harry Potter been the man who lived again.

She wouldn’t be here alone once again as Elianne was away at Hogwarts.

She wouldn’t be standing there lighting a candle to the day they gave up on it all and accepted that it had happened. She wouldn’t be here crying another time

Wishing futilely that things were different, that they could be.

Wouldn’t be clinging onto forgotten hope. To forgotten feelings.

She stared at the candle.

Thinking perhaps this was what kept him alive every year.

Was why she never forgot his presence, why she never stopped thinking of him.

Why she tortured herself with that hope.

The candle almost became him.

She stared at it hard.

For a long time all she saw was a small white candle sitting on the window ledge.

One candle, simply a candle.

She finally leaned over and blew it out sharply

No.

He was dead

~~

Her life changed

By one moment so vain

Cries in the night

Sleep brings none

And days linger on

With that same pain

Carrying on and on

And on

The reminder tight against her

Her soul ripped by what she loved

Every time she would think of

Thoughts of hurt, in among

What could have been

The sweet victory

Never seen

How it should have gone

The dream left torn, in shreds

No reason to try to

Life gone

On

Love

Something sung

But only in the wet, slick face

Hiding the way

Things went

Hiding

That message

Never sent

~~~

~~

Chapters 13 and 14

~~

Chapter 13

“News Travels Fast”

~~~

My eyes bound

I see still

The bloodied pictures

Of what may be

And of every light

Gone out

I see still

Despite

My life

My eyes bound

I wish that truly

That I could not

Find what others

Want explained

A want

That cannot

For what is not

Named

My eyes bound

Not against the real

I see it all

That is the truth

I see it all

My eyes bound

Not to cloth and darkness

But to darkness and pain

My eyes bound

To what is destiny

~~~~

##Elianne##

It was late September, October nearly on them. The Pax Omnia ball had gone by uneventfully for her, as one of the years not allowed to participate.

Elianne had been preoccupied with school. Hermione’s answers to her letters were uncharacteristically cold and short. Without any normal cheeriness. And she would have been worried by this. If she hadn’t had things closer to home to worry about.

Strange how Hogwarts was home now. A few weeks and all she knew was the curling banisters of the staircases, the quiet vast and grand library, the ghosts that floated round greeting them on occasions, even the magical portraits she would watch on her way to classes. As they danced up the walls stopping to talk to each other sometimes, gossiping almost more than the girls of hufflepuff and co. The notorious gang of the inane gigglets, sadly not just from hufflepuff. Even ravenclaw, a house noted for its smartness. Somehow even their names suggested their character of superficiality- Daphne, Charlette, Georgia and Patricia in the middle, naturally.

It seemed the houses were no barriers for the ancient art of Chinese whispers. It figured that at least two of them were sly and malicious slytherins. Not that people were any longer prejudiced against the house. But both were definitely still the old school type of their house. Nasty pieces of work. Not too unprone to spreading fictitious rumours as well as the real.

She was worried though. About the rumours flying around. Cassandra wasn’t all she seemed. Nor was she ready or willing to explain it to her best friends.

Strange things had been happening to her. She’d collapse. Faint. Go pale at the slightest mentions of things, not even important things. Just normal every day things that made her look like she’d seen a ghost.

People were saying she had.

And no ordinary ghost.

Their brilliant brains had surmised that she must have been seeing a ghost no one else could see.

The infamous Duke of Hogwarts. Who was meant to reside in some secret location in the castle. Bound and chained by magical means to his place of rest. The rest being something he’d never intended on. Much like the late Professor Binn’s.

They said he didn’t know he was dead. He still believed. And belief was a scary thing. In the hands of ghost.

Peeve’s was a nasty ghost.

The bloody baron was a vision of nightmares that shot chills down your spine.

But compared to the duke. Neither were on the scale.

And he didn’t know he couldn’t do all that was possible.

The duke had never been a very nice person in life. Which was why in death he was no better. And no less murderous. That was the reason he was imprisoned in Hogwarts.

So of course they thought the duke was in some way haunting her or she was seeing other visions, the kind that was bad whatever world you lived in, muggle or magical.

Yet Cassandra would not explain.

She ignored any questions directed to her. And insults from Patricia too. However cruel and obnoxious she was, nothing she said provoked Cassandra to satisfy her.

And she was equally worried that Cassandra wasn’t there for their first flying lesson. The whole year was being taught at the same time, due to Madam Hooch’s hectic schedule and had been instructed to congregate outside the school broom cupboard.

Elianne was as usual with Lucretia and Dido. Flora had opted to stand further by the corridor spying out for the twins. She had of course got distracted by Hector, a ginger haired Ravenclaw, who seemed to blush at the sight of flora and took every opportunity to talk to her.

Flora was indeed too into her conversation to notice the quadruplet of first years that approached the crowd. From the distance they all looked the same, short black hair and medium height. Closer up you could see two distinctive sets of similar twins. Two boys, each the same with ruffled black hair. The only difference was on the thin silver chains hung off the neck, an independent pendant for Damien and another Leander.

The girls looked equally identical to one another. Very short sharp stylish hair, making them look elven in quality. Though there was a clear cut between them. One, Anastis wore sweet pale pink subtle makeup and looked meek, whilst Ayran had her hair ruffled and tousled and held a tough face, waiting for someone to question her.

“Hi.” They said all in unison. Greeting Elianne and her friends who were at the front of the crowd.

“I expect we look a sight,” said Damien

“Two lots of identical twins. “And Leander

“All at Hogwarts.” Anastis carried on from him

“All in first year.” Ayran after her

“All in the same lesson” and all in unison again

They grinned to each other respectively. Boy to boy, girl to girl. Before looking back at the confused faces.

Anastis, the quieter twin apologised “Sorry. Don’t mean to freak you out. Our mothers were twins too. Parvati and Padma Patil. They went to Hogwarts, probably the same time as your parents.”

Lucretia’s face drained of all colour and her mouth formed a neat o.

She spoke up in a hushed voice

“You...you mean you’re all related to Parvati Patil? The famous….”

“The greatest…” hurried Elianne

Flora realised she’d missed them, and rushed over hoping it wasn’t too late to at least introduce herself to Damien. Instead she caught onto the end of the conversation.

“Oh, her. That astrologer. Muggle magical one. She’s pretty good. Wonder if you inherited any of it? Bet you can’t wait for year three then.”

Elianne and Lucretia stared at flora, who had totally demystified whatever they’d been trying to say about their heroine.

Flora smiled “Hi. I'm Flora Hinkley, in Gryffindor. Nice to meet you all”

Flora held out here hand to the twins, shaking the girls hands ignoring them at the same time and then moving on to the boys.

She disappointedly shook the hand only of Leander. Leander shook her hand in a leisurely manner, repeating his details. Which were lost on Flora, as was Flora on Damien; he nonchalantly picked his nails and looked anywhere but at her. Even the far sidewall with the picture of Wallis Wickham captured his attention more brightly than Flora.

And for a while they stood waiting, chatting amongst themselves. Flora tried ever diligently to strike up a conversation with Damien. It wasn’t difficult in these circumstances to tell which he was. He ignored her. Leander on the other hand tried to talk to flora.

Damien once murmured something like, “That’s nice Laura.” And yet Leander was not taken in, despite his friendly stream of information on himself, his family and other general things.

When Madam Hooch finally approached Leander had more or less got the idea. And looked rather dejected as they began the lesson.

Elianne watched him carefully.

Not even Madam Hooch’s little jokes and anecdotes on the dangers of flying made him smile.

He in turn was watching Flora,...and Damien. Flora was watching Damien. And Leander could see she was. He scowled at them briefly before mounting his own broomstick.

All through the flying lessons, she took in the instructions and flew quite fine, thinking nevertheless about her friend. Cassandra.

*Where was she?*

+++++

A fifth year slytherin walking from the 2^nd floor, late to lesson and mindful of the moving stairs and changing hidden holes stopped oddly. Cocking his head to the side. A puzzled expression on it.

He knew he was so, so late. Snape would have taken a dozen points off the house if he hadn’t been in his house.

Snape’d take off more than that if he found out where he’d been to become late.

The answer was not too surprising considering he was a fifth year male and this wasn’t an all boys school.

Houses boundaries weren’t as strong anymore. But for slytherins they’d been fierce and now were only less than that.

Love however had none.

Which was why Daniel Hyssop was late to potions.

And was why he didn’t stop to find out what those noises were coming from the third floor.

~~~

Chapter 14

“Autumn Ghosts”

## ___ ##

She stood stark still in the middle of the room.

It felt icy cold.

Her breath made a cloud in the atmosphere.

The door was locked. She’d heard it herself. Along with their vicious laughs down the corridor.

The third floor was out of bounds for a reason. She knew. They all knew.

They thought it was the duke. Maybe it was.

They thought he was here. That’s what the whole joke was about.

It wasn’t funny now.

Ignoring them had got her into this situation.

Full body bind. Kidnapped. Stuffed in the one room that you’d rather never see in your whole life.

She just hoped the binds held him to wherever it was near here that he was meant to stay.

Though the coldness indicated otherwise. He had to be close.

Why hadn’t she said something?

Anything to get them to go away.

Anything but the truth. And anything but this.

She was scared.

Closing her eyes she tried to block it out.

The feelings of anger.

Coming closer.

Eyes closed didn’t do a thing to it.

It wasn’t her eyes that saw.

Rage hit her in the head. The pure power of his presence in her thoughts made her scream.

She ran to the door.

Close up to it for protection. Murmuring under her breath. He wasn’t really there. Couldn’t really hurt her.

How in hell did they get the door unlocked?

Or was it her that had drawn him to this room.

Her power enticing him.

She could feel the patterns of his thoughts.

He wanted recognition for once. Centuries of being here alone. He wanted her to stay. Forever.

Fingers tried to form, not quite whole, and desperate to claw at her back. She panicked. Breathing tense and hard. She in turn clawed at the door hoping to find a hole, a knot, something that might open it.

His digits grasping her more strongly, still not what they should be, but more than before.

She found it hard to believe now that he couldn’t hurt her.

Her belief wasn’t in the equation.

He believed.

She screamed, pounding on the door. Rattling it at the hinges. Ever desperate to get out.

And she remembered nothing from then on of the duke or of the room.

Only that there was that frozen horror.

That came before as always.

The warning of danger.

Taking her to darkness.

+++++

##Elianne##

Elianne tossed in bed. Cassandra hadn’t been to any lessons. The whole day gone without sight of her.

She couldn’t sleep for worry.

Fortunate for that, her woken state meant she finally found out the whereabouts of Cassandra.

There were quiet footsteps up the stairs. If they’d been silent she wouldn’t have heard. Quiet however wasn’t good enough for her not to notice.

The door opened silently though.

Elianne peered through a small opening in the curtains around her four-poster bed.

And in stepped the school nurse. Floating Cassandra in behind her, some kind of charm at work to do so. Something far beyond a first years knowledge.

The nurse kindly and softly positioned Cassandra on her bed.

Cassandra lay there blissfully, unwoken by the movement. Sound asleep.

The worry rested on her mind despite this. What had happened to her?

In her ponderance, she did not hear any signs of Madam Pomfrey’s sneaking up on her.

The curtains where drawn suddenly around the nurses face.

Elianne gasped at it. She hadn’t heard a thing.

“Ms Potter, I know you shall not mention this to anyone. Understood”

She nodded unquestioningly

The nurse’s face softened and she spoke again.

“Your friend is fine. I would not have returned her here if she were not. She is in a dreamless sleep. She had a panic attack from a rather nasty prank that some other students played on her. We will find out who is responsible. But your discretion would be well for the time being. You did not see me. You do not know of this.”

The nurse disappeared at once.

The explanation given wasn’t enough to stop her curiosity.

If not for the deep sleep her friend was in, Elianne would have been tempted to stir her from it.

But it would have to wait til morning.

+++++

###Hermione###

Hermione idly typed a sentence out on the screen.

Nope.

Her task for the day was to finish the article.

---The uses of harebell in healing---

Thinking straight couldn’t be done right now. Making the task impossible to achieve.

She badly needed a break.

All that cluttered her mind was questions of how Elianne was doing. Was she ok? Was she finding it too difficult? Was she making friends?

All questions that mirrored her own fears when she had first gone to Hogwarts.

She was letting the past, her past, have control over her present situation.

She had to remind herself Elianne wasn’t her.

She was stronger.

Like her father.

Maybe truthfully Elianne wasn’t the only thing that plagued her mind, preventing her from completing next months article. It needed just a few concluding paragraphs. Then she could email it to her boss, one of them anyway.

She wrote for so many different things these days. Hard to keep track of what was on her resume. Of who she was meant to send it to.

But she did require time out from this. Endlessly sitting at a desk provided no inspiration whatsoever.

The country would be nice

Or the town as long as it was quiet.

To get away from it would be nice.

She’d got an owl. From Ron.

He was coming home.

After eleven year he’d chosen now. Why?

She’d known why he’d left. She’d understood why he stayed there. He always maintained it was to help with the research. But she knew he never cared for it. It was an excuse to keep him there with no questions asked from anyone.

She’d never questioned him either. Knowing what she did she ought to have. But she wouldn’t. She already had a tainted outlook on his reasons.

Why?

Because he felt guilty.

He may not have caused it. He may not have been able to prevent it.

His guilt was sheer; it was simply there, for its own unfathomable reason. Attached to that was the fact he’d never been able to find or prove who was responsible.

Ultimately that would be Voldemort, deceased. Though someone had been the betrayer. On the inside there must have been one. One that had never been found thanks to the closing of the books on the matter. Ron had of course only been let out of custody because of this but he must have wished they hadn’t let him go, that they hadn’t stopped looking for her. Ron had been adamant about that fact.

Just as Snape had been.

And reading Elianne’s owls his opinion had never changed.

Just as mistrusting as ever. Just as dark and angsty by the sound of it.

Never willing to accept plain facts as facts.

The single change in him being that he’d actually complimented a student, a Gryffindor at that.

He’d never done that to her.

Ron’s suspicions were never backed up by evidence. After all the biggest piece of evidence was missing should it have been true. The one flaw to his theory was that she was dead. The investigation therefore never went any further. No one believed him. They talked about it as a blatant front to shove them off his trail, away from the truth.

No, they never proved him guilty either but there were people who thought Ron shouldn’t have been released, who only felt good about the lock down of the case because of the great joy of the war being over. That would perhaps be just another reason Ron had been eager to get out of the country.

But the same people who thought he was on the bad side were still alive. If that was what mainly made him leave and stopped his return, then why would he still come back today?

She couldn’t answer any of the questions she asked herself.

Very literally she’d stopped thinking anything more than of the past.

Lost in the depressing reality of old, she got up, gathered up her belongings and put on her warmest cloak.

+++++

##Cassandra##

A pile of books slammed down onto the table, followed by an intimidating face behind them.

“What’s going on? I need to know. I am your best friend. Aren’t I?”

Cassandra opened her mouth to speak; tentatively she searched for the right words.

If she got it wrong, then she was sure they wouldn’t be friends much longer.

“Shhhhhh. Be quieter. I can explain. Its difficult to but I can. Lets go somewhere else though. More private.”

Elianne stared into her eyes. Cassandra already knew the answer.

“No. There’s no one here anyway. This will do fine, its got all the privacy you could want. Now spill.”

Cassandra feared to look at her friends face whilst she started to talk. Who knows what she’d think and she didn’t want to see any of the looks that she might give her. She couldn’t stand further disgrace from those she knew.

“I have a gift.”

There was an impatient silence.

“I get it from my grandmother. She’s not all human you see. And I share certain qualities with her, certain things like her gift. Though I should say curse.”

There was more silence. Cassandra didn’t dare look up.

“I had a panic attack after Patricia and co locked me up on the third floor. Where the duke is. Madam Pomfrey thinks he’s why I panicked but that’s not the truth. I mean he did scare me but that wasn’t it.”

Silence. She couldn’t stand it. Why didn’t she say anything? She carried on. Angry. Hoping though that Elianne could perhaps understand. If she could just explain it enough and in the right way.

“I blacked out. Sometimes it does that to me. I get a feeling. It’s a warning that a visions coming. Sometimes its also a warning generally because I see things in my visions. I see the past, the present, and the future. My grandmother called it a gift. The rest of my family call it a curse. And I was unlucky enough to get it. The things I see, they aren’t nice. That’s the whole point. I see the bad things that are to happen. Whenever they are from. Sometimes I'm still conscious when I see them. And I act funny then; go pale, just like seeing a ghost. Or I’ll speak things I don’t understand. Say things about what I see, that I can’t control. It controls me. It shows me things I never want to see. Such bad things. Things that are going to come true.”

Silence for a few seconds. Then she heard her friend’s voice

“Why was it so hard to tell me that? Why did you think I wouldn’t want to know?”

“I thought you wouldn’t want to know me.”

She looked up to Elianne. Her face creased with concern.

“Why?”

She honestly didn’t care, did she. She didn’t care about it. She looked at the face. No. Not horrified. Not disgusted. Only concerned.

“It made me act weird. People noticed. And when I was younger, when I saw things, people got scared. They thought I brought bad luck on them. That if I knew them, then I’d see them in a vision. That I’d make bad things to them.”

An eyebrow went up.

“How could you? It’s not your fault. Besides you only see, you don’t get to choose or change the future.”

“I know. It’s just no one ever understood it like that before. I was scared everyone would hate me. Be disgusted with me.”

She’d barely finished the sentence when she found herself engaged in a tight hug.

She smiled. Tears of relief in her eyes.

+++++

##Hermione##

She’d wondered about going to the orchards but the cold wind outside had soon changed her mind.

Diagon alley it was.

The favoured choice for a bit of browsing.

She had to pick up supplies too. Ink was hard to come by in the muggle world; the magical inks were also often good for writing in, in some cases.

She thought of Flourish & Blotts but saw the crowded streets in its direction and decided on checking out the lesser-visited shops.

Mystical magical. Hapsworth hexing. Longhorns clothing.

The last sounded good. A relaxing choice. Colours galore, the range of fabrics, textures. The pleasure of taking time to choose the correct garment for the occasion.

What occasions had she to buy for? She muttered as she made her way down the cobbled path.

Christmas break? Not really anything much to dress up for.

Graduation? Long time away, would have changed by then.

But yes. It would be nice to get a dress. Something stunning. Just incase an occasion arose.

At Longhorns there was no littler a group of wizards and witches outside and around, but this time it did not put her off shopping. She had a goal. A desire to find that perfect dress that would define her. Elegant hopefully. Not too showy. Not to brash. Not glittery. Not Barbie pink.

So many things she could not let it be, she trawled the hangers of samples. Searching for inspiration. Wanting to have a design in mind when she walked up to the counter and ordered.

In the end she’d come out of the shop with what she believed was close as possible to the perfect gown ever made, made with her in mind.

She would look beautiful for once. On the occasion it would be worn she would be almost an angel.

This meant as she went to gather up other odds and ends that she was smiling radiantly, sweeping her feet off the floor and stalking the street proudly, confidently.

Until she caught a glimpse of a dark haired figure running off, by the side street.

Her smile faded.

She walked on.

And then again, after getting the ink. She’d escaped the crowded store to witness what looked like him.

A few seconds she thought it was. Then gone.

Her imagination playing with her.

But him, she kept thinking she’d seen him. Out of the corner of her eye, or passing her by. Running off somewhere, hiding under a cloak. Turing away from her.

Every time she looked back. Every second glance. He wasn’t there.

It wasn’t him.

Her imagination was torturing her.

He was never there.

She knew he wasn’t

But each time her heart flipped at the hope.

Her breath catching in her throat.

She couldn’t stand it.

One thing said he was dead

Another said he’s alive

Whispered hopes and

Desires

Belief being all she had

And

Not knowing where to place it

In shadows

Or in stone

Every person unknown

To each other

~~

Chapter 15

“Who Knows Who”

~~

I closed my eyes

Trying not to let it in

As always

It repeats

Amongst my thoughts

Travelling to my soul

The hope

The hope that tears me

The cries to the nights gods

Please, please

Stop it

Years gone by

I can feel it still

The hurt I felt

Left alone, without anyone

I want only

That it can let go

That I could be

Me

Once more

Don't you know

Of an aching

Deeply strange

In your heart

Don't want to believe

Time's been away

Passing all over

Grasped though

Not leaving me

It repeats

The sweetly laced saving grace

I imagined it might come

Then

I knew it was a dream, hopelessly

It repeats

One thought, one dream

Two thought, none left here

The tide turning over me

My head throbbing

Once more

It repeats

Stop, please

Be true

Be wrong

Any single one

Just be

~~~~~

##Hermione##

Her anger washed over her in waves.

The past month’s he was all she’d really been thinking of.

Still not thinking properly she reminded herself.

And it had suddenly occurred to her that it was his fault.

If he was alive then where was he now?

Where had he been the last 11 years, where that was so more important than his only daughter and the future of his friends life that he’d managed to somehow screw up, despite her perfect planning.

He’d inadvertently been torturing her, driving her crazy all these years. And before he died she added bitterly.

The past was past but in this life it never stayed down.

Pain never got lost in life, in real life pain didn’t go away.

She felt like pretending he was a candle, burning it down because she couldn’t get to him.

She was angry because he was alive and not here.

She was angry because he was dead and never coming back.

The years of restrained hurting had come crashing onto him.

A man who for all she knew didn’t exist.

Arrggghhhh. She screamed in her head but felt like screaming out loud.

The neighbours would come round if she did.

The house was far enough away to cover any mysterious magical noises but not murderous screaming.

If he had been here she’d near kill him.

He’d done this to her.

Ruined her.

Careers destroyed. Responsibilities that were never meant for her. Her parents had disowned her.

What more could be wrong unless she’d died too.

The membrance of her mother brought a tear to her eye. They’d not spoken for 8 years.

Her mother had not understood why she’d taken on Elianne.

She’d known all the reasons why she should, and evidently all the reasons why she shouldn’t.

They’d never agreed on the matter.

She probably felt right now how her mother had seen on the subject all those years ago.

Ruining.

It hadn’t just been that her mother had thought she was too young for a child, especially one not hers. Recommended that Elianne would have a better life with a foster family or adoptive parents, anyone but her.

Why?

Because I was too young, because I was mourning, because I had so much going for myself, because…her mother knew the what had gone on.

Knew all about how she felt, the looks she’d once given Harry one summer. Because you can’t hide those things from mothers.

They notice beautiful necklaces. And pecks on the cheek at the station.

And the sullen silences. The over hurriedness of meetings. Trying to escape.

The words rang in her ears.

“This is not your doing. It’s not your responsibility. He’s gone, get over it, get on with life. I couldn’t stand to see you waste a single year more on him. He’s gone. She isn’t him, she’s not his replacement. This isn’t the time for it Hermione.”

It had all gone on. She’d not abandoned her when she needed a mother most. Had been a stand in grandma and then when all was good enough, she’d left her life.

That disapproving frown plastered over every inch of her face.

The way she thought I’d dropped everything for the potter’s, any related to him at least. Anyone close enough.

Like she saw me as a desperate schoolgirl crushing on him after all my teenage years were gone.

She’d never seen my care for Elianne. The fact I’d been the only one there for her. That after my grief I couldn’t make more.

The clearing was charcoal black. Stubbing a stick in the soil, you could see all of it was burnt. Life taken away from it. No trees here anymore. Once it had been a pretty, secluded clearing. Perfect for a picnic. That was one of the reasons he’d chosen the house. The Grange. Would have made a good family home.

She wouldn’t have been up to living there though.

Elianne would have loved it but for this sad patch in the forest.

This was the best they had of a grave.

No ashes here, unless you counted the whole area.

The remaining trees all stood back from it, leaning away she’d always thought.

The ground tainted by their reasoning. With death.

She’d been sure that it would have become a tourist spot.

Roll up, roll up, here’s where you-know-who died. Hip, hip, hurray.

But wizards where far more superstitious than they’d like to know.

They thought they’d die if they came here. Stand in the centre of the place that was imbued with the greatest powers of the century destroyed and gradually it’ll get you too. The death inside it. The middle much the same as the middle of the pyramid, the point it gathers to. The power to make you go crazy.

Ha! Both of them had already done that to her. Dead as they were.

It was the only place she knew of that she could take out her anger.

Mentally she could try to scream at him. Might not work but she’d feel a whole lot less like a psychopath then.

Maybe this time it wouldn’t be enough.

No one ever came to the spot.

And no one would know.

They’d just assume she’d gone crazy if they did see her.

She opened her mouth and screamed blue murder. For every unfair event happened to her. For her hate and her love and every emotion there and above, she screamed.

+++++

##Elianne##

“I told you it doesn’t hurt.” She watched Cassy struggle free of Dido’s concerned handhold.

“It’s just that it makes me feel strange, act strange. Its not nice but I'm not dying or anything.”

Dido twisted her face up, angling for a more honest answer. “Are you sure? Shouldn’t you tell someone?” she’d make a perfect nurse when she grew up, Elianne thought.

Then it was Lucretia’s turn to harass Cassy. Neither one had stopped asking questions since she’d told them.

Dido was acting mothery and Lucretia was like a cat, on the edge of her seat, ever curious wanting to know more and more about it.

“So why do you only get bad things? Why not cool things like finding out….who fancies you?” Lucretia sounded like she was appealing to flora’s taste.

Flora as of yet had said nothing much on the matter. She sat doing her transfiguration essay, this was the one time she paid any attention to the conversation.

“My grandma said it was because they’re the most intense events. There’s power in them, in the destruction and pain that goes with them.”

She caught the estranged look on most of their faces and translated it into a more muggle style. “Like a stronger signal on a TV. The antenna picks it up more easily. Whether I like it or not” she muttered the last part rather bitterly to herself while enlightenment settle on the rest.

Elianne’s brain stuck on a hidden thought for a second. Hang on.

“How do you know what a T.V. is?

Cassy paled a little and her eyes clouded slightly.

“I was brought up by my aunt and uncle. My aunt’s a squib so they live like muggles in most ways.”

All the girls studied the table hard at that comment. No one met Cassandra’s eyes.

Elianne wished she’d never asked.

But she had and Lucretia the tactless couldn’t wait to ask.

“What happened to your parents? Anything to do with the family gift?” she smiled a little, obviously hoping to force another smile out of Cassandra too.

It worked, but only because Cassandra didn’t want to break her friends allusions. She had absolutely no sense of timing. Which sucked but she was a friend. And Cassandra wasn’t as sensitive about the topic anymore, so she answered it for fear of endless pleas from the other girl.

“In a way, yes. My father’s alive but he couldn’t cope with me after my mother’s death. I wasn’t that old when it happened and he was upset. You see it was when you-know-who…

Elianne challenged her “Lord Voldemort you mean”, Hermione had been insistent on never fearing his name. It had got imprinted to her over the last few months. You could fear him if you liked but his name was nothing, could do nothing to you.

Cassandra shifted uncomfortably in her and agreed shortly but not really willingly “…yeah. Him. He killed my mother. My father was lucky. He’d heeded my grandmother’s advice. Guess it was because he was so scared of her, whereas my mother, she didn’t like the gift. She called it a curse. And she refused to change her plans despite what my grandmother told her. So she died. If she’d listened it might have been different but…Then my grandmother would help look after me as well. She still blamed herself for mum’s death even when she died herself. That’s why she told me about it. She thought it was important. That if I ignored it then I’d suffer too. Only I didn’t ever understand til she died. That’s when I started seeing things. I saw her death. I think it must have been right when she was dying, when it passed over to me, otherwise I don’t know how it works. She died of a heart attack. That’s not the worst I’ve seen.”

Nobody spoke for a whole minute. They were wowed into submission with the story, however sad it was it had a dramatic flair to it. it was the story you’d tell your grandchildren. A real family legacy.

Cassandra was the first one to speak up.

“She predicted your fathers…death.”

Elianne’s head shot up. Everyone else slowly and cautiously moved their heads in the same direction.

“What did she see?”

Cassandra seemed half scared to say it to her friend. Elianne had a certain look in the eye. A fiery lust for the truth.

But it wasn’t pleasant.

“She felt him burn. Like a lightning bolt. Other than that she wouldn’t say.”

Elianne cast her eyes down.

“Not one person will tell me what happened to him. I know you don’t know much but …Thank you. It means a lot.”

She stood up, pre-empting the bell that shook the room indicating their first mythology lesson.

“Time to learn new things”

+++++

##Hermione##

It had taken more than a little while to calm down after her release of pent up feelings.

Standing had seemed a good way. In the middle. Claiming some of that power they said was there. So much had come out with the cry. Tears and rage mainly.

But she was fine now. Ready to leave.

The silence was getting to her.

It tingled with something. The power?

Silence never lasts.

She heard a person approaching, but it was autumn and the piles of crunchy leaves were everywhere. It made it impossible to tell who was there.

She swizzled round, glancing quickly through the trees that circled the clearing.

Nothing.

It unnerved her. She could here the crackling of dead leaves underfoot. She was not alone anymore.

Where were they?

She clasped her wand tightly in her hand reading to blast them back if they approached.

She moved backwards slowly to the tree line. Scanning the trees as she did.

She neared the trees faster.

That was her mistake.

A hand grabbed hold of her, pulling her to the accompanying body with the other hand clammed over her mouth so hard she couldn’t utter a single word.

+++++

##Elianne##

The class steadily sat in rows.

The students ninety percent girls. It could have been because boys weren’t as academic, or because of the quidditch practice going on outside which lots of first years had been keen to watch.

Or it could have been the fact that the history of magic professor wouldn’t have been out of place in a blockbuster romantic comedy, charming good looks and intelligence to boot.

Therefore most in the class were going to spend his extra lessons swooning up at him with dreamy eyes.

Elianne however would be thrilled to hear about the gods and goddess’, about the old ways and all the things she loved dearly to study.

She could already see Flora’s eye’s popping out at the professor and dido herself had secret smile on her face, a tad more subtle than the others.

Cassy was drawing on her parchment idly, not too interested in anything and Lucretia was doodling little hearts, getting stuck on what his initials where.

Proffessor Issacs stood in front of the board. All eyes on him. Except for Cassy’s Elianne noted.

“Hello class. It’s very good to see such a turnout for an extracurricular lesson. Though I may like to call it a club instead. Because everyone here is free to join and free to leave when they like.”

One of the boys got up immediately, hurrying out the room.

Maybe his ego couldn’t take the girls adoring anyone else.

Professor Issacs smiled an embarrassed smile, his terrified eyes met by thirty or so eager ones.

“Please be settled. Today and for most of the rest of this term, we will be learning about one of the first ancient pantheons. The Michiya.”

Elianne gasped with delight. They really were going to learn about them. The textbook had eluded about them but all else she’d found out ha come from more obscure books from her aunt’s personal library.

“Now I don’t expect anyone here to know about the Michiya but I believe they are a vital part of ever wizards heritage. The Michiya clan was the oldest known wizard society to date. They were the forefathers of the magic we know today. If not for them none of this would exist.”

That got a few shocked faces from the class.

No one had ever taught this before. All those in the class, be them from year 7 or year 1, had no knowledge of who they were beyond a name.

“Does anyone know what was special about the Michiya pantheon as opposed to more recent pantheon’s?”

He wasn’t looking for an answer but Elianne’s hand shot right up.

“Miss….” He questioned as he ran his finger down the register quickly “Potter?”

“Yes, sir”

He smiled, confused. Someone actually knew the answer?

“They did not value one god over another. All were equal. And …”

“That’s enough Miss potter.”

He started talking again, rather unsure about his presumed idea that no one in the room would know a thing. That was what made it easy to teach.

“As you heard the Michiya did not assign importance to any god over another. With the exception of ceremonies, where it was accepted as necessary to call on a certain god. The Michiya clan as a society also held all members as of equal standing. This was of sole importance to their belief system, which, despite the includance of deities was secular. The Michiya held the deities under esteem not for them as persons but as keys to each humans real potential. They used the deities much like other religions. They would pray to them, speak as if they were real and would perform rituals that were the forerunners of today’s magic. But they did not believe in the deities themselves. It was what was inside their own mind that was held in respect, the inner power that the gods symbolism reflected and controlled. The word Michiya roughly translated means one’s own right to power. This was the integral object of their clan.”

He finally stopped for a breath. All that could be heard was scribbling. Elianne could hardly keep up with everything he said as she tried to make notes.

Not halting for long he picked up

“As all the god’s are of the same importance it’s hard to know where to begin but I thought you’d all find the legend of Caltrice interesting. Caltrice the friend is the goddess of purity, truth, honour and selflessness. She stood up to sacrifice herself to save her friends. And in doing so accepted her death in exchange for the sparing of the others lives. The one condition is that none would know her sacrifice, the act of a true hero, no satisfaction in it. A deed done to love. Little have survived of the original texts but I can read a small translation of the story.

---She stood to the sky in honour and bowed her head to the heavens. The blade struck her heart, she screamed in agony, her suffering she received. Her tears mixed with her blood and the white light shone through her wound. She proved herself worthy and trusting. For her truly selfless deed she was elevated to a goddess, to sit in the stars and guide others. ---

She is described as the best part of ourselves. The good in everyone. Called upon for guidance in love of friends, family and lovers. They also thought she could help us see the good in ourselves, the kind we can do. Common prayers to her were to ask to see good in yourself or in others, especially friends.

Other information gathered by wizarks at many sites is her associations : Sunday, Pine trees, new moon, green and silver, sword, spring, water, the heart. Infact one of the wizarks who has been working in this field went to our very own school, Hogwarts.

Ronald Weasley. Some of you might know him, you may even be related. Who knows.”

Ron? Her godfather. A wizark. That didn’t suit him. And he was in Romania studying dragons like his brother. But if it was true, and Professor Issacs hadn’t misread, mispronounced the name, then it could be none other than him. The Weasley family was big but they all knew each other and she had never heard them speak of another person called Ronald. It was true she hadn’t ever heard much anyway but she had a feeling it would be him. Or it would be too surreal. It was only a feeling of course. Not much to it.

“Alright. Time to pack up. We’ll be doing Moyana, the sister, next week along with tribal customs. Hope to see you all here again.”

Elianne glanced sideways to Cassy. Just as before she was ignoring the teacher. He hadn’t made a good impression on her. And Elianne would have looked away because it appeared Cassy was simply daydreaming but the ink on the paper caught her eye.

Cassy was staring up, yet her hand was drawing on its own. In actual fact Cassy was in more of a trance. Elianne waved in front of her face. Cassy blinked and jolted backwards from the moving hand.

“Sorry, just thinking.”

They gathered up the books. Cassy walked out normally, as if nothing had happened

Elianne shook her head seeming to be trying to dislodge something from it.

Must have been mistaken.

+++++

##Hermione##

Her instincts took over immediately and she bit into one of the hand fingers.

The hands all withdrew and she ran forward in freedom and turned around to see her attacker.

And was greeted by a large yelp from the redheaded man, whose hand was bloody red, spots dripping to the forest floor.

“Merlin Hermione. What did you have to do that for?”

She looked confused at her grown up friend. His flaming red hair was wild and long, pulled back in a ponytail. His face curled in grim pain.

“Why did you feel the need to assail me? Why Ron? Why are you even here? I thought you weren’t going to back for another month and why come here of all places?”

She raged, ready to yank out her hair. He infuriated her, pure and simple. She wasn’t in the mood for surprises or visitors and he came under the category of both.

“Nice to see you too.”

Sarcastic as ever.

“If you want to know. I’ve never been in Romania. I hate dragons. I only stayed for a year. I just let everyone think I was there, get the M.O.M off my back. You know, those guys, who hate me?”

It wasn’t a question to answer. Though she could have come up with a subtly curt response if she hadn’t wanted to find out what he’d been doing.

“I’ve made a good name for myself in the wizard world of…what do muggles call it…..that word….arch…archi…archiologee.”

She gritted her teeth, oh so tempted to correct him.

“Not very exciting. But then again I can’t exactly become an Auror with my ‘record’, can I. Besides it was only part time. Wizarky isn’t the only thing I’ve been doing over the past 10 years.”

She smiled a smile of humouring to him

“Then what have you been doing?” she made it sweetly put, he’d know she wasn’t in a good by it, he’d answer it quickly if he was still intelligent.

“Looking for proof.”

She stopped walking, he took a moment to notice it.

“You’re still trying to prove it wasn’t you? Isn’t it enough Ron that they didn’t put you in Azkabhan?”

“It was never about that. That’s why I didn’t stop.”

“If you don’t give a damn about your own life then what the hell are you fighting for?”

“Everybody” he turned around finally, seriously straight faced “You know that all the dark wizards didn’t disappear when old Voldy did. You know their still out there right? And the ministry don’t give a damn because they’re all so happy, happy about no more Voldemort. They’re not thinking right. We’re still not safe. You’d have think they’d learned by now, what could happen. The horrors people can do. But no. They haven’t improved security. They barely have any Aurors employed and none they have do bull. Yet no one ever went away. That traitors still out there and there are gonna be more like her, waiting for someone else to come out of the woodwork.”

He stood, eyes shot over. She’d never seen Ron Weasley so upset about anything before. With one exception. He kept his cool.

This made him lose it. He really was afraid of all those things coming true.

“So what have you been doing about it?”

“I belong to an organisation. It’s undercover. Covert. We seek out threats. Gather information. Try to rally support for our beliefs.”

She laughed faintly at his overly dramatic description of what was probably more akin to a secret seven meeting in the garden shed than a spy game.

“I suppose next you’ll tell me Snape’s in it too?”

She hadn’t expected anything other than a furious flush from that but…

“Yes. He is. He believed me then and he still does. I'm not the only one you know. And it isn’t some stupid little game. We have something. The world isn’t the little safe house M.O.M think it is. Something’s going on. That’s why I'm here.”

Deadly serious.

He wasn’t fooling around.

It came as somewhat of a bombshell to her.

She couldn’t remember Ron ever being like this. He was never the military, do what you have to type. Never into this lot. Being an Auror would have changed him but he didn’t get to that. They’d denied him the possibility over the fiasco they’d put him in the middle of.

Scape-goated. They’d ruined his life.

And Ron protected them, in a roundabout way.

All those years. He hadn’t been running away from the past. He’d pursuing the future, and the truth owed to the dead.

~~~~~

Life is remote

The pictures

The words

Far from me

Seen only through glass

And ball

Can't make out what it means

Who they are that i see

What they did

That was anything good

Can't make it out

Nothing means anything more

Than anything else

For all the words and pictures

The floors got as much as them all

Could mean as much or more

No image any better

All blurred

Standing tall

Turned away

Can't decide

Not enough

Let’s just sit back

For a while

Let it get on

With life

~~~~

##Elianne##

Elianne sat at the table picking over her food.

Conversation was on Halloween, one week from now.

The chances of another ball after the Pax Omnia ball were slim to none but the upper year Gryffindors were excitedly talking about what else there might be.

“El, you ok?” the voice was Kate Greenbush’s, a six year prefect who genuinely liked her for her as far as Elianne could.

“Yeah. Fine Kate. Not too hungry.”

That was a lie. She was famished but the food had lost its flavour.

Didn’t Cassy know when it happened?

Had it?

She had the terrible feeling that she shouldn’t mention it. Cassy would probably hate for her friends to see her in one of her strange moods brought on by a vision.

The question was what had she seen?

Was Cassy ignoring like her grandma had warned her against or did she really not know it had happened?

Well, nothing would matter if she starved herself.

So she set towards devouring the strawberry trifle next to her. Maybe the sweetness would get through her taste buds blocks on flavour. Sugar would also make her a bit more perky. More chatty. Less likely to induce worried looks upon herself from odd behaviour.

##Snape##

Snape ate his casserole. He hated it. It was soggy and cold by the time he’d forced himself to get round to it. He’d been pondering on Mr. Weasley’s thoughts.

And he yanked a spoon of the food up towards his mouth, about to take it in and sourly swallow it.

He heard it before any of them. The students were too far removed at first, the teachers too chatty and jovial.

He heard it.

Her low voice, trembling under the weight of the words, words that did not come duly from her tongue despite it being her own voice.

He concentrated his hearing on them through the cluttered noises of the hall.

He needn’t have.

She was growing louder.

The others noticed. They hushed. Many peering around the table to see what the meaning of it was.

It didn’t take long for the students to realise the professors had silenced themselves.

The students did too, out of curiousity.

Trelawney was speaking with enough volume to be heard by all in the hall in the quiet.

She’d started repeating it now.

Almost verses.

“Terror shall reign. Side by side chaos. the dark clouds ceasing the sky. Night shall be night for eternity. The darkness a sore sight. A delight to our lord. He will be won. She will be one. Terror shall reign…”

He was sure she’d said more than that at the start but this was the prose that kept falling from her mouth.

Snape gulped. His face a ghostly pale. Paler than his usual abnormal whiteness.

##___##

Everyone but a few girls on the Gryffindor table where looking upon Trelawney.

Those girls instead had their attention drawn to Professor Snape.

The terrible, horrible, greasy git who scared a large population of the school witless.

Professor Snape who currently looked a shade of death darker, afraid.

##___##

Not everyone was concentrating on Trelawney. Nor on Snape.

There was one ginger haired girl who shuddered at the words her ears found.

She stared at the table in effort to listen better.

To her horror she found the words sounding like they'd passed her lips, none too ages before. She discovered herself moving to mimic the motions of what the professor was saying.

“Terror shall reign. Terror shall reign….” Over and over the words repeated.

##Elianne##

The teachers had laughed when it was over. Professor Trelawney had no idea what she’d said and McGonagil had announced very loudly her opinion on ‘seers’.

Only a small number of students saw that Snape had not improved afterwards. His face just as ashen.

They’d piled out of the hall, muttering over what it all meant, how things always happened near Halloween.

What if it was the staffs idea of a practical joke? Seemed a good note not to tell Snape. Not many liked him.

And this was the generally accepted consensus of the students, minus the part about Snape because none had noticed that piece of evidence.

She swooped into the dormitory aching for sleep.

She flopped onto the covers ready to tug them over her and roll into the bed but finding she was on top of a letter she pulled it out and opened the seal.

Plain wax, no signet.

Inquisitive, she undid it and read what it had to say.

Hogwarts has a history of events happening on the moon of Halloween

Best to stay away from Hogwarts trouble. It comes in three, three headed dogs usually

It was signed ‘a friend’

Who could it be?

Her father, Sirius, Ron, not Hermione. She’d say so if she’d written.

Dumbledore, he’d know of the event, he might well do such as this.

From a friend?

It was a warning.

They wanted her to keep out of things

What if…

Is it from him?

How many know of that? She wasn’t sure. It could be few or all in the school at the time.

Either it was a warning from someone who knew something would happen, surely only someone who would do such would know.

Unless someone else knew too, someone who really was a friend.

So it could be.

Might be.

She’d never know tonight at least.

Halloween was soon. So whatever would happen she’d find out soon. And she’d find this ‘friend’ soon in that case.

~~~~

Don't believe

The hope that fills your heart

Because right from the start

It was the way

To fail

For sure

That everybody knows

That’s the way you'll go

In every day

You think

Its true

Its right

Its mine

You'll leave a bit behind

In every night

You dream

You toss and turn

Over and over

Worn and weary

In beats a little less

In every year

That passes

You forget

The advice

You heard

The lessons you once learned

The things that meant

All the world

Now all you have

Is you

Not sure what

Quite to do

In every way

You went down

That straight path

That lead to where we said

It would

In every way

You lost it

Day by day

The rhythm pounding

Only now a small sounding

The swelling of the organ

Only now flat and emptied

You lost it

Day by day

In every way

~~~

Chapter 16

“Could It Be”

~

What would you say if all your questions could be answered

No mysteries anymore

No alleys left unexplored

Would that angel be a saviour

To be adored

Would that demon be a traitor

To be warded away

Would you say yes

To eternal bliss

A happy state

A godly kiss

Would you say no

To forever stood still

A place that never exists

A way ignoring all else

She awaits the question

Eyes fatefully cast down

Wanting to accept

What is hers from the years

Gone by, idly passing time

Why does no one ask her

Why does no help come

When she ever asks them

Crying out for justice,

A revenge upon herself

Why does no one ask her

Is it

Could it

Be

Not truly,

A question

That she is denied

That life is how it is

Because life is how it is

That there’s no one else to it

~~

##Elianne##

The ceiling twisted and turned, raging like the storm that it mirrored.

Elianne pulled her head down from staring mesmerized at it and paid some attention to the sumptuous feast that the house elves had prepared.

The meal was fabulous and the hall was decorated with carved pumpkin lanterns. At the start real bats had flown over their heads spelling out happy Halloween.

Lucretia was still debating with Greg Chelmsfod about how they’d managed to get the bat to do that. She never gave up when she thought she was right. Even being a first year. She had a will of iron. That didn’t earn her many favours from most people.

But Elianne knew she had a tender heart inside and a loyalty that could be compared to none.

She’d noticed all evening so far and over the past few weeks that they’d got to know one another, that Lucretia was fast building a reputation and didn’t know it.

Up and down their own table people were giving her looks, unexplainable except for one thing.

She went against the grain, of the crowd, the way things were. And no one liked change. Sad that the wizarding world itself was caught in a nostalgic era where all was golden as before, because Lucretia had missed that and had no idea what dreams she shattered by attempting such things.

They looked at her with contempt. For even being a friend to her.

Elianne didn’t like what that meant. But she knew what it was.

She might have said something if not for Flora’s antics.

Flora got up from the table and walked over to the other side, sitting between an unimpressed Damien and a Leander who eagerly moved aside to make way for her.

She carried two cups of pumpkin juice.

“I thought you might like some juice, so I brought some over.”

Damien scowled.

“We already have pumpkin juice over here. Everybody does.”

“Sure, I’d like some.” Leander smiled graciously accepting the glass.

Flora handed it over roughly, with a fake cheery smile back at him for all of two seconds.

He smiled less sincerely to her after that.

But never the less he carried on being curtious. He answered her questions. All her questions. All of them about Damien.

“So, how come you’re on our, Damien’s table? Aren’t you Slytherin or something?”

He smiled at her politely this time. Losing his cool bit by bit.

“Yes, I'm in Slytherin but I wanted to sit with my brother. Why not?”

She made a small facial contortion at that, unsure what to do or say in answer.

“So, what does Damien like to do?”

His eyes grew colder.

“Why don’t you ask Damien?”

She answered in a flash, the obvious reason of course.

“Oh, he’s far too busy to talk to me. But I know he’d love for you to tell me.”

Eyebrow went up.

“Right. Okay. He’s into sports mainly. Quidditch is his passion, same as any boy our age. I like Quidditch too. I'm hoping to get on the Slytherin team next year as keeper.”

Leander signed wistfully at that dream, that hope.

Flora burst his bubble.

“Really? Thought you’d be bit scrawny for anything like that. What about Damien? What else does he like? Is he going to be on the Gryffindor team next year do you think? Is he good?”

Her never ending florrent of questions was stopped abruptly by a hand that yanked her out of her seat.

Anastis glared at her standing straight next to her.

Flora glared back. Thinking for a moment.

“I’ll be right back Damien.”

That was it.

Something snapped in the head of the principle watcher of this pained conversation.

She ignored the clear look from her sister across the table. Flora had done it.

All eyes from the table where on Anastis.

The quiet Ravenclaw who had for the rest of the time been sitting next to her Gryffindor twin. The girl who spoke up once a lesson if lucky. Who had barely any friends not related to her. The girl who was meek and mild and tolerated all of life’s negative little nuances.

“Why don’t you leave my cousin alone”

Flora completely missed the statement and it seemed the point to it.

“I don’t have to leave him alone. I can sit next to Damien if I want to.

Anastis’s jaw jarred together. Teeth set against each other agonizingly.

“I meant Leander.”

Flora missed the point by a mile.

“I wasn’t doing anything to Leander. Why would I bother with him?”

“YES, why would you bother with him? I mean, he’s the one who acts kind and talks to you and actually seems to recognise your presence in the room, why on earth would you think about him when you want the wonderfully unattainable couldn’t care less about you in a million years DAMIEN. They’re identical twins but NO. You choose the one who hates you and then you go on and treat the other who adores you, like a little pawn in a game to attract the other. A game that if you had two eyes and a brain you’d see isn’t funny in the least and is never going to work.”

Flora drew breath in sharply at the incensed Anastis.

“You had no right to insult me. I didn’t do anything wrong. It’s not my fault Leander’s a boring toad and Damien’s……….nice. I don’t care about what Leander thinks and it’s nothing to do with you.”

“Hah! Nice! You really are a complete airhead or delusional at best. I hate you. It’s my right because it’s my family and you are the one who has no right. No right to be at Hogwarts. No one wants you here. You a dumb flirt who might as well have been a squib!”

At the end of her rant, Flora was speechless. An event in itself. Her mouth open in pure shock.

Anastis’s anger seethed, and as the final affront she slapped Flora bang in the middle of her daintily blushed cheek before running out of the hall in tears.

+++++

##Hermione##

She curled up on the floor infront of the fire. Letters in hand.

The flames flickered this way and that. Uncertain where to go, what to do next.

Out in the distance the storm raged, ruining the sky til ragged. The horizon full only of dark black and grey clouds making the air fizzle with electricity. With power.

She leafed through the letters. All written by the same hand. No particular message. Symbols. Signs. That was what they were.

She knew them. Every one. They meant what they’d been intended to.

The coming of what was so long in coming she’d by now hoped it away. Far away, far from her desire. Long gone unlike it was supposed to be.

She threw the letters in the hearth hastily and sank into the quilt she had wrapped herself in further. Wishing away the storm. Wanting the situation to be gone. Anything but what was going on. Anything but what she could feel happening.

She drew up all the emotion in her and forced it to the front. She couldn’t be plain and clear. She needed her anger to see her through. Needed it to dissuade herself from being foolish. Can’t trust the heart. But she knew ignoring it couldn’t be done. Which was why she thought of all went wrong, all that could inspire that shred of hate.

She could not forget when it happened. In the presence she would feel that hate because in this day it was all she could be sure of, all that he’d left. It was his legacy, something to return.

+++++

##Elianne##

Lucretia walked over to the table, to their little group.

“I saw Anastis heading towards the lake.”

Dido immediately spoke up, ever concerned for her friends.

“What? But there’s a storm and then there’s that thing, that prophecy. It’s dangerous out.”

Lucretia sat down among them.

“I know, but we can’t let her go off and get hurt. It’s not good out there with the storm. None of the teachers saw the fight, they’re all rather very merry and if we tell them then she’ll get punished.”

Cassy didn’t look like she liked the prospect of either of those alternatives.

“We can’t let her stay out there. There’s that thing out there, whatever it is that Trelawney said is happening. And you said Snape was worried. We can’t leave her out there BUT I don’t think we should go either.”

“Cassy… “

Elianne toned out of the topic, into her own thoughts. She noticed Flora was ignoring them because they still considered Anastis a friend. Dido, Cassy and Lucretia were debating whether or not to follow Anastis whilst she pondered over the note.

It had predicted something. Something she’d been warned to stay out of.

Question was whether it was for her own safety, to make sure she doesn’t save anyone, for the successfulness of whatever it was to happen. And whatever it was, Anastis was out there too. If it was bad and Anastis didn’t know, that was a far greater danger for her than any of them. They’d be prepared at least.

“I think we should go.”

Lucretia and Dido looked at Cassy.

“That’s that then, we have you outnumbered. I think we should split up to look for her but I guess you two at least are too worried to go alone, so why don’t you three go to the lake whilst I check her favourite spot, that bench. She could be either, so we out to check both. I’ll meet you all up at the lake. Come on. Here we go. Let’s sneak out.”

Lucretia headed finished talking and they all nodded, resolute in the plan, heading to the doors and on to find their friend.

+++++

##Anastis##

Anastis ran, fists clenched, towards the lake. The rain beat down fast onto her and halfway there she changed direction. Gathering speed she sprinted, cloak over head covering her to the potting sheds. No one would look in there. She didn’t want to be found.

She’d ruined any chance of friendship with any of the Gryffindors, she knew she had. Insult one and you insult them all.

But Flora had been such an arrogant self-assured blackthorn.

She’d humiliated her cousin Leander too.

He’d never asked her to say anything. Couldn’t help it though, Flora thought she could treat him like dirt to get to Damien. Damien who she knew for a fact would never date Flora and had no intention of even giving her the time of day.

Flora used them.

And if she’d left it down to Aryan, she would have gotten her comeuppance in a far more discreet and importantly untraceable way.

Now she’d spoilt it all.

Blown up what could have been a little tiff into an inter-house feud.

She resigned at that last conclusion and wrapped her soaked robes around her.

Suddenly the castle was very appealing.

Not the great hall perhaps.

The common room or the library maybe. Somewhere out of the way where no one would find her.

+++++

##Elianne##

Outside they regretted the decision.

The rain pounded down on them like icy bullets tohugh only water.

They peered, searching the misty horizon for any sign of the lost girl as they walked closer and closer to the lake.

They stopped automatically half way there, no sign of her anywhere.

Elianne turned around to face the other two friends

“What should we do now?”

Cassandra caught her tight around the arms, shaking her slowly. Eyes wide open at her.

“There’s a snake in the grass, there’s a snake in grass”

“Ahhhh!”

Dido screamed. Jumping around on the spot she danced and jigged avoiding the imaginary serpent.

Elianne stood on the spot. Ignoring any idea that there could be a snake

“No. Stop it. DIDO! There isn’t any snake. Not really.”

“What?” thoroughly annoyed she grabbed hold of Cassandra and shouted at them “Why would she say that. Cassy, you trelch, how could …”

Dido didn’t see it. Too absorbed in her own horror and anger.

“Its not her, she’s in a vision.”

Dido affronted Elianne, brow creased in puzzlement.

“But she talked to you?”

Elianne walked away from them, a step further from the lake.

“I doubt she meant it for me”

Cassy came out of her incoherent mumbling and looked right at her, into the depths of her mind, with a chilling ease.

“She’s here, she’s in here, can’t see because she’s in the grass. Eliza, Eliza, the little girl, outside to see, playing in the rain.”

Elianne stepped back further. Whilst dido ever ready to nurse, tried to egg Cassandra out of her state.

“Cassy, you don’t make any sense, if you can hear me and you know something please tell me.”

Nothing.

Elianne thought, walking around in a circle. Thinking upon the situation.

“She won’t come out of it til its finished. She doesn’t have any choice.”

Dido took one moment to look up from Cassandra, worry evident on her face.

“What about Anastis, do you think she’ll find her?”

Elianne thought for a split second. Better to tell her the best. Or she’ll panic.

“Yeah, probably. Lucretia’ll be fine.” She tried to deflect reflection off of that detail

“We can’t help anyway. We have to stay with Cassy, we can’t take her back in there like this. They’ll all see. She’d be devastated if everyone knew.”

She ignored her own fears, concentrating on Cassy. That mattered. They could help that. Besides that Anastis could look after herself fine. Not as well as Aryan but good enough. She knew how to use her wand and how to do some simple defensive spells. It wasn’t like she was completely unguarded.

It wasn’t enough for Dido, she didn’t give up on the argument.

“I don’t like it. We can’t just leave them out here. It’s not right”

“Don’t worry”

Too late for that though, Elianne thought. It’s Dido’s life occupation after all.

“I mean its not right, something isn’t right here. You heard what Cassy was saying. There’s danger around. Otherwise she’d be fine and not going crazy. Remember!”

“Yeah, I do. But we can’t leave her. There’s no choice.”

It wasn’t like she could forget. There was a lot she couldn’t forget.

The prophecy, the note, the ominous atmosphere.

The tiresome rain that hit her head constantly out here.

Through the rain they saw a light figure emerging.

Lucretia wet and anxious returned, initially scanning them, seeing nothing wrong.

“Hey. Can’t find her. Can barely see in this storm, the rains thick and hard…”

“…And odd” Dido added, glancing with a now fully conscious Cassandra to the field

“What?” Elianne and Lucretia both lacking the understanding of what the others where getting at, what they where looking at.

Cassy spoke up croakily, for the first time they saw she’d recovered

“The rain’s moving in rivulets, and it’s like its silver, mercury. Is that normal for Halloween rain?”

Elianne swallowed hard. This was what wasn’t right.

“I don’t think Halloween changes the properties of rain.” Lucretia’s sarcasm pierced the shattering rhythm of the falling rain.

Only Dido dared to hazard a faint answer

“Maybe the rains always been like that but we never noticed. I mean it’s never been quite like this before, like the storm. And usually we avoid it.” her voice edged optimistically upwards as she said so.

Elianne glanced down to her clothes, which sheened with an almost translucent layer

“Then why is it running in streams up towards the castle?”

They all looked at her. None worried anymore. None concerned. All staring like she was dumb.

“Water usually runs in little rivers. Duh.”

They didn’t understand. That wasn’t the point.

Silver, metallic liquid.

Liquid, not water.

Not water, not rain.

Not running down. Running somewhere and in a suspicious way, one not becoming of water, more suitable of what she dreaded she’d find out here tonight. Trouble.

She looked at it and explained the strangeness she saw in fewer words.

“Not when the grounds sloped to drain into the lake it doesn’t.”

+++++

##Anastis##

Anastis slunk through the cold corridors shivering. She needed to find a fire fast, she’d catch pneumonia otherwise.

Her ears were alert. She was aware of some one following her. Not footsteps. But there was a dripping, much like the noise she had been making when she’d first entered the castle wet.

The ghosts did like to frequent this corridor though. Especially some of the more bizarre ghosts. Thankfully not the duke. Nor Peeves.

She felt a sudden draft of warmth and turned into a room that looked like a quiet study area, possibly a former professors office.

It had a glorious fire, she grinned in delight at the heat on her fingers as she stood in front of it.

Certainly she’d found a good room for hiding.

When she could feel her hands once more, she looked around the room, happy at its mere warm ambience.

She gazed over to a desk, and to her great surprise saw upon it a silver grey butterfly.

A beautiful creature, basking in the light from the lamp near the tabletop.

She reached out and it walked onto her hand.

She was amazed at its colour, it had a magical sheen to it. Not unlike that of the pictures of fairies she’d seen in books.

Maybe it was a magical creature.

Maybe it wasn’t a good idea to have picked it up.

But it looked harmless enough.

Her amazement quickly turned to terror as it dissolved on her into a shiny fluid, with streams of the same substance arriving to her body from all over the area she stood in. in a few moments it had covered her in a silky fine web that masked her whole body, freezing it and all it might have given away. No sound escaped the net.

The net which was carried off by the dark lights the rest of the material had transformed into.

The window blew open, the force of the wind that strong.

And out the window went the whole package. The trap now covered in the fairies glow and looking not too unlike another ominous storm cloud. A cloud that flew out into the distance

+++++

##Elianne##

“Where’s it going?”

“As if I know any better. We just have to follow it.”

“But it’s going too fast.”

Dido panted, out of breath from their constant pace since that instant they’d known what was wrong.

“Run faster. We have to get to it, Anastis might be in trouble.”

Lucretia frowned

“We don’t even know where she is. She could be outside still. And we don’t know what this is, it could be fine.”

Elianne couldn’t believe they didn’t get it. she could feel it. this was what was wrong.

She knew it.

“It’s not normal at least. Doesn’t that convince you?”

“No.”

Elianne was the first to stop at the door.

“Then maybe this will.”

The others caught up with them and entered the room, rushing to the window.

“What is that?”

Their question answered as soon as they asked it.

The last of the metal like rain formed into what they saw quite clearly for a while as a fairy. Silvery-grey, tiny and fragile. It flashed with a dark glow that matched that of those in the distant cloud.

“They took Anastis.”

“How do you know?”

Dido turned her back a minute from the scene in the sky to ask her, curious and hoping it was flawed, that Elianne was wrong. She could see that hope in Dido’s eyes, like so many she’d seem it in before. In Hermione, every year, every day, for just an instant.

A tear crept from her eye. It wasn’t flawed. She had that feeling.

And then there was proof.

Anastis’s silver bracelet slept on the cold stone floor. Her horoscope sign pointing up on the mantle of it. The bracelet unique to her. Her name engraved on it. Given by her preciously treasured mother; the bracelet that never left her sight.

+++++

##Hermione##

She’d resigned to sitting out on the patio.

In the storm.

She liked the feeling of being in the rain.

It helped her feel passionate.

It helped the anger she craved to be.

The lighting was getting closer.

It some how warned of what was.

The danger of the night.

Just like the power in the air.

It was a night that would change things.

She’d been expecting it for weeks.

It had seemed almost tangible when she’d met Ron again.

Like it was a condition of this.

The happy reunion.

Now it seemed further from her than ever.

The build-up being so great, so long.

Now she’d given up and it was coming still.

Not dependant on her. He’d come anyway.

As if it was fated. In the stars. In the sky.

She’d watched the sky, watched it intensely.

If it was in the sky then where was it?

Why?

Why now and why generally, did all this have to happen?

Life was never normal, never uneventful. Nothing lay settled.

Everything got disturbed at some stage.

He stood in front of her.

No expression on his face.

She stared at him coldly, standing at a distance.

It was pouring down. This didn’t make her move.

He stood a fair distance away not daring to move any closer.

It would be a shock, he knew. Best not to expect much from her.

He pointed to the necklace that she held draped on her hand

“I thought that would be a good indicator. That I was coming back. Giving it back, I hoped you might have made the connection.”

“I didn’t know you had found it” was her only reply

“You don’t believe I’m real, do you?”

She replied curtly “I don’t believe you’re in my imagination.”

“So you think I’m an imposter?”

“It wouldn’t be that hard to believe. A lot of things have happened before”

Never was that any truer. This itself was in the realm of the impossible. She couldn’t assume it was him, that he was the same or sane; that he was anything of what he used to be.

“I found it a few months after you first lost it. I got up early every morning before lessons and searched for it.” He answered her unasked question plainly, then his voice turned bitter “Not that you would have noticed. You were too busy avoiding me.”

She said nothing.

This provoked him to continue.

“And in seventh year we were the perfect best friends. Weren’t we?” it wasn’t a question he said, the words were forced to make a statement out of it, that sounded every bit as cruel as one of Malfoys old insults.

“And everyone knew we were great friends. Because we were both subconsciously trying our hardest to prove it, that we were great friends.” His voice curled at the end of the sentence, creating a gaping silence.

“And when we graduated we were still those wonderful, fantastic friends that we always were. We sent rather formal owls every few weeks just to be nice and you even attended my wedding and smiled politely at everything that went on. And as far as anyone else was concerned we were those best friends. We were the only ones who knew something was wrong, that it had been for years. We were stubborn, denied it. Never tried to fix it.”

At last she seemed disturbed enough o say something, raising her volume and tone she asked in that politely demanding way.

“Are you trying to prove something to me or are you just trying to hurt me?”

He walked forward, as to reach out around her arms though he thought better of it and stopped before that.

“I’m trying to say. We’ve changed. I’ve changed. I’m Harry Potter. Not the one you recognise. You still know me. But……I’m different now. For one I’m less trusting.”

“The years have that effect on everyone” the way she said it meant it

“I suppose. Glad to see it’s not confined to just me.”

He smiled just a little, a few seconds before that glint in his eye died.

“My point is things happened. Back then. And whilst I’ve been gone. That changed us. The whole wizard world;”

There was a pause in his speech, a hint of hesitation. Like he was unsure whether to say something.

His eyes flickered and flicked back up to focus on her.

“Things happened then. Things have happened. Things are going to happen.”

~

We are one

A chain of two

What you do I do

You broke my heart

And in the consequence

I'll break yours

No point destroying the things you love

You already did a good job

I can't forgive you

For you can't forgive yourself

You deny

It wasn't your fault

But we are you

Even my blame is yours

Even my sin yours

And yours mine

Mine to see

Mine to stop

My fault I did not

Supposed to be strong

But the link is weak

Tenuous

Two halves apart

Somehow

Still better off

Than whole and cast away

Better than together

With our lives set to the stone

The rules we broke

Once

And bound never to do again

Once a victim

Twice a fool

Twice, we get you

~

~

Chapters 17 and 18

~

Chapter 17

“You Hurt The Ones You Love”

~

What was it you said?

Something about something

I never truly heard

For I turned away

And

You never questioned me

And

I never asked what it was

We, the best of friends

The closest

Known to the rest

As the closest

They never knew

And

I did not say what I was thinking

And you,

You never wanted to listen

There were things they knew

Not right

As is with all people

And

They never questioned either

And

They never asked what happened

It was all a great mystery

Every day

Of those days

Not knowing what the life was

What the lies were

Where the truth resided

If we could even have

And

We carried on

Words deprived

Faces close, but turned away

Lies not spoken

Lives broken

The way

We lived

Those days

~

##Hermione##

Hermione sat reading the daily prophet. No news of Harry Potters return graced the headline. He must have been keeping his head down.

She wouldn’t know though. They’d hardly spoken since he’d returned. He’d taken up residence in the house, she would not refuse him that but neither had said a thing.

He spent most of him time out, away somewhere. Maybe with Ron. She had a feeling what Harry had mentioned was to do with the same thing Ron had said was going on.

Reconnaissance?

Who knew what they did.

He ate alone as mostly he only came back at night, when she was asleep, as he thought she would be.

She held the paper up, not really paying much attention to any of it.

This was the first time she’d seen him in two weeks for more than five minutes.

He sat in the corner at the desk writing a letter.

She could have glared at him but they were beyond that.

The history between them wasn’t good. The years had worsened it.

He hadn’t asked yet either.

So she hadn’t told him either.

He kept his secrets, not sharing with her.

So she kept hers.

Not one question.

This didn’t improve their present.

Not one question.

And no answers as to where he’d been. Why he’d ignored his only child for eleven years.

Not one question on how she was doing, what she was like, how Hermione had coped raising her on her own.

Did he care?

Nothing suggested he did. Apart from him bothering to come back after all this time.

Maybe he didn’t realise it but for her it wasn’t just him that had returned. It was the past, the feelings; the whole story was lunked up like an the old box of photos stored in an attic for decades. Brought down with tears.

The life since he’d ‘died’ wasn’t the only complication to their relationship. The questions not asked, not answered weren’t the only obstacle to any type of continued friendship in these days.

It was the past that held most of their secrets.

+++++

##Anastis##

The girl cowered in the corner of the dungeon. Crawling further back at the scuttling sounds of the rats.

They’d fed her, they’d been quite nice in the case of not having tortured or killed her.

But it was rank and cold and dark in the cell, as it had been for the fortnight.

Unless of course it had been longer, she found it hard to tell, the sun didn’t get very bright at any point in the days around here and she could well have miscounted the sunsets she’d seen through the small high barred window.

They hadn’t hurt her. They had however taken her away a few times. Performed spells on her. Nothing bad, nothing she could recognise but they wanted something. It couldn’t be long before they discovered she wasn’t it.

+++++

##Elianne##

Around the common room there were puffy eyed faces. Flora’s continued maintenance of her sincere regret still lingered too.

The blame hadn’t laid anywhere but Flora had taken it on along with a few others, Leander, Ayran, Dido; all who felt responsible in parts.

Elianne and Lucretia at least had seen that they couldn’t have changed things that night, that others were accountable and that it had sinister implications for the future.

It seemed there were also people who did blame but did not rest it on those who you would have thought.

Through many halls and in many lessons, blank angry stares had been directed to Lucretia.

Even a few Gryffindors had taken to shunning her publicly.

There was no reasoning to this really, just that dull stupid prejudice that scathed the Malfoy name and gave them an excuse to point fingers and lay guilt.

Lucretia hadn’t taken it well. The few fortunate things to be grateful for round Hogwarts these days was that Patricia actually defended Lucretia, holding to the idea that the Malfoys being purebloods were honourable. However uncomforting that was in general, it helped curb the rumours and talk.

The other rather odd but pleasant event was that Cassy hadn’t had any more visions recently, since infact that night.

Elianne was still reeling over the cryptic and unexplained message directed to her on that night but no visions made Cassy happy even in this saddened aftermath.

Cassy being pleased about this had made no attempts to see a reason to it. Elianne and Lucretia were more astute and after the abduction thought it better to check it out.

Elianne tucked at her friends arm, motioning her to get up.

“The library?”

~~

For where there is sin

And confusion

It is she

She is that voice

That guides mischievously

You to the taken path

And you may call her pain

And you may call her shame

Though she merely

Echos the other way

The nature

We behold

Tenderly protecting

Our minds from

She is all but the denyer

In her exists the utter truth

The brutality is acceptance

For she is the lover that takes any

Ugliness is her beautiful

The carefree light in the fall

She is that that was not meant to be

The reality that lives

Who we refuse

Under cloak and guile

We will not see

Her face in the mirror

As if it smokes

We flee from she

In tears

As she would bring our world down upon us

Destroyer only, of hopes and dreams

Of subtle ways that are made

With promises she would break

For where there is sin,

And shame

And guilt

There is her smiling face

Ready to embrace

All

~~

##___##

She stood back perfectly upright infront of the altar addressing the daily gathering silently for the time being. The temple was an elaborately decorated place. Large gilt statues towered over her on both sides. The walls were painted with dark frescos, picturing mysterious mythical events that were embroiled in pain and power, stormy clouds cluttering their climatic scenes.

“We knew there was a seer. Yet you failed to bring her to me, she still walks freely down their corridors. You failed us. What could have been out tool is a potential liability. You will pay for it Micah, in the only way that is respectful.”

She glanced to the man on her left hand side and gave a short nod.

Micah caved in on the floor clothed in rags, begging for forgiveness in front of an audience of the rest of the followers.

Two of them dressed in an ominous black appeared, to drag him away.

The priestess paid no attention to his cries and pleas and did not speak til he had left the confines of the sacred space.

“Does anyone else care to do justice to our master? Do not speak without caution for you know what will happen if you are to fail.”

One of the brown robed figures of the crowd left her hunched friend and rose to the platform at the centre, kneeling to the priestess.

“I believe I know how we can use the seer to our advantage.”

The priestess warned her verbally, tsking her for her lack of consideration.

“You miss the point that we do not have the seer, Eliza. You should think more carefully about whatever it is you plan.”

The woman dared to look back up to her, meeting the blackened eyes of the dark witch with her own equally startling violet ones. They contracted in fear as she spoke back to the higher member of the order.

“Mistress, forgive me but you miss the point. We do not need to have the seer. There is another way.”

The priestess walked away from her, skimming her fingers over the boiling black water of the centrepiece of the temple. She stared into its dark abyss with identical emptiness, the temperature not scolding any of her fingers as she dipped them into its depths.

The flames beneath the black waters and its ceremonial bowl writhed in torment to its limits.

“Really; pray do tell all, and you shall be shown that rewards too come from his might.”

+++++

##Hermione##

Two words had taken her life away from her.

Two words. Too many years ago.

The memory was fresh, as it is with anything that happens to change you that much.

The memory of that day wasn’t happy for her; for everybody else maybe.

///---Flashback---////August, two months after graduation.

The flowers smelled delightful in the fresh light air in the church. Such a thing would have made her smile if she hadn’t been here and it hadn’t been happening.

It was halfway through the ceremony.

She didn’t know why she hadn’t said something earlier.

She’d half expected Ron to burst in protesting the union, he hadn’t and she’d not had the courage to spoil the happy day as it was for all the gathered persons.

Much of the Hogwarts staff were assembled here, including Severus Snape to her surprise. Harry had invited him but no one had thought he’d actually come.

Harry’s guests took up most of the building right and left of the aisle, not only because of his plentiful list of friends and close to relatives but also because of May’s lack of any. Her guests consisted of a wrinkly fussy deaf man, her great-uncle and only living relative and one female friend, who was a sharp pointed spiteful looking woman who she was fortunate not to be sitting next to.

For her the backbench had been the best comfort. Further enough away that she could pretend she hadn’t heard the words, that she wasn’t here in a church at Harry Potter’s wedding.

Back in the old days of being 3^rd years she’d imagined that she’d be ecstatic on any of her friends wedding days. Especially Harry’s, he had so much pain that he deserved happiness. But life hadn’t figured out that way.

Ron wasn’t even here.

Even Snape had turned up, albeit looking thoroughly bored and acting like the whole affair was moronic. He disdainfully sat watching May who wistfully watched her soon to be husband.

Ron hadn’t.

Why had she?

She could have spared herself the pain.

The answer was easy.

Spare herself pain, whilst inflicting it on others.

It would break Harry’s heart if she hadn’t accepted the invitation.

She came despite the fact it broke hers to be in the sight of this event.

“Harold James Potter do you take Elizabeth May Grinshot to be your lawful wedded wife. For better or for worse, in sickness and in health, for richer, for poorer, til the end of your days?”

“I do”

It rang in my ears.

He’d said yes.

A second ‘I do’ came in the sweet melodic voice of May the next minute.

Both of them had said it.

Like everyone else hoped, like I had known would be true.

Nothing could stop it now.

It was done.

My life was over.

The reception was average. A bad band played in the background heralded the choice of a muggle wedding as Harry had wanted, and she sat drinking a glass of wine.

She’d lost count of how many times men had asked her to dance. She preferred to wallow in the depths of her misery after this morning, finding it best to wallow in the wine for a slow descent into a stupor that would hopefully take the pain from her. Or at least replace it with anger.

Had it all been her fault?

That it ended up as this.

Separate.

The comfort that she wasn’t the only one having a bad life or day didn’t work anymore.

So what if Snape despised it all? So did she. Not on the same grounds though.

Snape hated these sorts of events. He also, she took it, found May to be less than great.

Much like Ron had.

Ron had gone to the extreme of telling Harry he hated May. That he didn’t like her one bit. Because of this the trio didn’t exist any longer. But neither was it a glorious due. Things never had been since sixth year. Only the lack of Ron introduced this to the forefront. Harry had gone. Left their lives forever. Forever but for owl posts and dutiful visits to keep up appearances. Too much of that had already been done

From Hermione’s eavesdropping of the introduction of the two, May and Snape had an instantaneous dislike. She couldn’t see why. Snape should have loved her. Brilliant at potions Harry had said, but Snape wouldn’t have stuck around for all the firewhisky in the world.

Snape was now spared that despair for Harry and May had left some time ago for their lovey honeymoon in Scotland.

Then they’d be back to The Grange. She knew she’d never savour saying those words into the floo-fire or thinking them as she apparated. The Grange was as much like all the pain she was tortured with over this, as was May the embodiment of it. The Grange was that place that would for now and all eternity in the Potters minds be the family home.

How long before there was a family to fill it?

And then there would be no room for doubt.

The Potter’s were made for each other.

Nothing could pull apart that bond.

///end flashback///

~

Chapter 18

“Anything and Everything”

~

Don't have to do anything really

To do your worst

Only needs to be theory

Needs one little chance

One small glance

One wrong look in the right direction

Don't need to shove it in my face

For me to find out

Because

I can see

And if I do

What will it be

Doesn't need much

One touch

A few friendly talks

More time than necessary spent

Less time on me

Then I could see;

There was something else

Of importance

Over the days I'd find

That

I was drowning in insignificance

It became greater for you

And I further into the deep

Sinking away from your life

Whilst still in it

Right next to you

With no right

Don't have to do anything really

Lack of love's enough

To break my heart

~

##Cassandra##

She got up, pushing her arms out to her sides to support her body.

The sun shone down into the room, indicating what the quietness had already told her. Everyone else was already up.

She’d slept in.

That never happened.

Usually the dreams would wake her in the early hours of the morning and she’d spend the rest of the witching time til dawn holding herself tight trying to forget what she’d seen.

She always saw things in the night. In the day it came and went depending on events. But the night, the darkness had always found its way to her unconscious mind. Telling her all of the horrid delights life held for others. That was the inescapable.

And now it had gone. Suddenly.

What plagued her vanished as quick as the curse had come. A cure. Growing out of it? The world starting to be a better place? Who knew. She was only grateful. And hopeful the next time she slept that it would be as peaceful.

+++++

##Flora##

Flora sighted the black haired boy from entering the hall. It was light, barely any Slytherins were up right this time. Only the cheerful hufflepuff’s cherished a premature morning start. As she approached the table she saw he sat there on his own, picking over porridge. Rather unappetising but she could see why. He was punishing himself. He felt guilty. Just like her.

“Leander?” her voice quivered with uncertainty about whether he’d reply

“Flora”

It didn’t sound like he hated her. It was more despondent than anything else.

“I'm sorry. I was stupid. It was so silly and I shouldn’t have said that about you. I know you are better than him. Anastis was probably right. The unattainable desire.”

She made a face indicating she couldn’t have been any more ignorant of that delectable matter.

“I regret it. If I hadn’t done anything then… she’d… probably… still be here.”

Her eyes set downcast in shame. There wasn’t anything worse that she’d done in her life. This one thing that was so incredibly silly and flippant of her and it could have cost a dear friend her existence, pain at best.

He looked up at her mortified.

“It’s not your fault.”

“What? Of course it is. I caused all that trouble.” She flapped her hands around trying to demonstrate her anxiety at what he was saying. “You didn’t condem her. You didn’t make her run away. You didn’t do anything except be yourself and kind and nice to me. Despite me being the worst kind of witch imaginable.”

“I guess” he returned to his porridge dejectedly.

She couldn’t stand the way he thought about this, she had to persuade him. She grabbed him arm yanking him around to face her “No. It was never your fault if it was even anybodies. I don’t care what you think you did. You didn’t. if there was someone to blame, blame me.”

He stared at her and stated it like the obvious “I can’t. I can’t blame you. I think I love you.”

She let go of his arm, not having expected that and meanwhile he apologised

“I'm….sorry. …I didn’t mean to say that. It just came out… I only want to be friends…but please….don’t blame yourself.”

She studied his face, thinking it over, wondering why he let his emotions stumble out openly.

“Okay. I think we can manage that” she said cheerfully, she took his arm once more as she sat down with him so he was no longer alone “… as long as neither of us try to place the blame. Then maybe we’ll be ok. All of us. Somehow. And you and me.”

+++++

##Hermione##

They sat frigidly at the table. The dinner on the plates picked through. The atmosphere between them frosty, no words uttered hostile or not.

They looked at anything but themselves.

Hermione got up and Harry immediately rushed out of his chair to her, meeting by the window where she gave him a challenging look, “What?” she didn’t care for the answer he knew but he replied anyway

“We need to talk.”

She laughed manically for a short second

“Do we? Really. REALLY. I hadn’t noticed. Not one bit.”

Her face was contorted in a callous sarcasm that she’d responded in.

“Hermione…”

A tawny owl bearing the Hogwarts crest entered the open top window and hovered over them waiting for instructions.

Her face lit up in that same fantastic heartlessness.

“A letter. Might as well be for you. After all it is from your daughter.”

Hermione stampeded out the room heatedly, taking with her any warmth Harry had felt. A door slammed in the distance.

Leaving Harry with a letter in his hand.

~

When all is right

Do you ever ask

Why

Or do you accept

This how it ought to be

When all is right

Does anyone ever ask

Who made it so

~

##Elianne##

They sat in the library, Cassy happily writing her potions essay.

“What’s up with you?” Lucretia asked slyly

“Nothing” she’d answered in a short sparky way

“Of course not. Should have known”

Lucretia had been like this for the last week. Anything that came out of her mouth was the joyous prize of trouble. She’d lost 70 house points already. That hadn’t won her any praise.

None of this week’s comings and going had either.

No news on the research into Cassy’s gift, no help from Cassy herself and no better response from the student population.

Elianne felt worried about Cassy’s sudden brightness, it meant she hadn’t had any visions but she didn’t know if that was a good thing yet.

And none of the books in the ordinary library had helped. All the divination books were being used by the new third years and it was doubtful they’d contain what was needed.

She chanced a whisper to Lucretia

“It’s no good, I think we need to look in the restricted section.”

Behind them a hearty malevolent laugh echoed inot their ears.

They both turned to the regrettable façade of Ian Trickett, 2^nd year Ravenclaw and bully galore.

“What’s that Malfoy? Planning on exploring the dark books, taking up your family legacy. Rid the world of mudbloods, honour the dark master and pass this years exams, huh?”

His dumb face leered over them both smugly.

Lucretia shocked them, most of all Ian, by talking back

“No actually. I thought I might rid the world of you, for the sake of every students sanity.”

A few people faintly laughed at her joke, wondering what Ian would do next. He didn’t do anything.

“What is it with you Trickett? Can’t take a joke. A simple little harmless joke. What is it I hear? Oh gasp she’s a Malfoy, she’ll curse you to hell’s bound and chains. Oh no. What a shame for you. But luckily…” she spat the words out one by one “I'm not a Malfoy in spirit. Maybe I have their blood in me, but I wish it were anything but, anything you hear me, anything. Anything at all. I'm not my father’s daughter. I hate them. I despise them, Malfoys. And I despise you. I pity you.”

Ian trembled slightly in front of them and turned and walked stunned to his own table of friends.

Lucretia glared at the whole library with menace.

“Is that enough for you? Is it a good enough show? Is it? Want any more of the famed Malfoy wrath?”

She spun out not waiting for any non-existent answers.

~

Sorry doesn’t cover

Everything you did

Because you can’t know

What everything is

~

##Harry##

Harry and Hermione stood opposite each other.

“Did you read it?”

He’d have been genuinely scared if he hadn’t

“Yes.” He tried to sound solid in the manner he said it.

“And?”

*What now, what did she mean?*

“And…?”

“Don’t you get it? Its everything. Where have you been for the last decade, what were you doing, why now, why not before, why did you leave us alone, why didn’t you say anything. All I needed was one word from you, one word, just one word…”

He watched as she spirally out of control with questions.

Questions he couldn’t answer

“WHERE?” she screamed at him.

Had it meant so much to her? To know where he was. Would she be satisfied with his answer. It wasn’t what she’d be thinking of, not what anyone could realistically expect. None of it made sense.

“WHERE for Merlin’s sake?!” tears ran down her face, its shape twisted out of recognition in living grief.

She wanted to know. She needed to know. He had to say.

“I …don’t…… know”

His eyes met hers and she saw he wasn’t lying.

Her tone softened as she spoke in a queer wonder “How?”

“I…don’t.. know, …either”

Her face scrunched up in the sheer strangeness of what couldn’t be.

His face stayed placid and pale. A small panic in his features, barely noticeable.

“How could this be? You’re alive but you don’t know what you did or where you were for the last ten eleven years. You should have been dead.”

His face shifted slightly at what she said

“I think I was.”

///flashback////one month after graduation

##Hermione##

She leant on the bar waiting for them.

The letter had been a shock.

For her.

What would Ron think?

Mind you that was different, he was Harry’s best friend but he wasn’t stupidly infatuated with him.

What it had said wouldn’t have made Ron afraid.

Because Ron didn’t live in fear of what might or might not happen.

Ron had a healthy friendship.

Harry and Hermione had something else.

That no one noticed. That neither questioned openly. That was always, but never resolved.

And now it looked like Harry had resolved it, in his mind.

The parchment had been crisp, his handwriting flourished, him happy and excited in the way he wrote.

And then he mentioned it.

I met someone. A girl named May, she’s French-English. Black hair, violet eyes, beautiful, lovely, kind. I know you’ll love her

Just as much as I do

A whirlwind romance, it seemed.

Something out of the blue.

Nothing really made sense it that.

All the years they’d not been together and he hadn’t ever been out with anyone much, nothing serious.

But he spoke of marrying her, a girl he’d only known for a month, since he’d left to explore the world starting fatefully in France.

+++++

Ron hadn’t taken it well.

The words rung around Harry’s head.

“You don’t know her. What about her family, her history, her background? It’s too soon.” He’d protested.

Love didn’t care about that

Ron tried evermore.

All the way to his house to sway him from his announcement of marriage.

“It’s not right. I don’t like it. You can’t be naïve in times like this. You can’t trust her. I don’t want you hurt.”

Yet he’d hurt him. By not being his best man – he’d said he’d hated her and would rather Avada Kedavra himself than willingly help Harry bind himself to her –, by not being at the wedding.

Hermione never said anything about her. She was the constant. His one reliable…person…friend. She’d sat at the bar and said goodbye quietly while he and Ron had stormed off arguing.

She trusted him.

And he trusted May.

//end flashback///

##Harry##

“I did die, somehow I know that. And Sirius found me in august, thinking I was dead at first. I was weak, incredibly weak. I was on the brink of life and death, barely there. Siruis waited til Halloween, and did a strength spell, it needed that date, that’s why I never came back til Halloween. I haven’t been alive, I couldn’t have seen you or Elianne. My memory isn’t all there so I don’t know what happened to me that night or anywhere after. But I know I did die. I know it was Voldemort and what killed me killed him too. But he wasn’t alone.”

Hermione looked up tenderly at her friend. Life never stopped taking on twists for him. His days had always been tired and drawn out, with pain and problems.

“I'm sorry.”

“So am I.”

One way or another they knew it wasn’t just the shouting and the anger that they were apologising for. Everything had led to this point. Everything was what it was about.

+++++

##___##

The black waters swirled into a vortex, mirroring a picture.

“It works” one of the figures exclaimed

“Of course it works. It had to.” Eliza lifted her head to meet the eyes of the high priestess who smiled in approval.

Eliza moved to the side whilst her crooked friend helped the decrepit old witch join them, standing in over the basin to interpret the signs.

She grinned toothlessly

“It’s pain my lady. Exquisite mad pain.” She said it mirthfully dancing slightly

Eliza nodded reassuringly to her friend, who lifted his dark scarlet eyes to hers worried.

She relieved him with a knowing look and her words. “She’s a little mad but she knows what she speaks of.”

The tainted old woman gasped and giggled at the dark pit of images.

She curved to Eliza saying calculatingly “you took her pain away, you gave it to me, thank you, thank you. So pleased. I'm so pleased.”

Eliza sneered, the witch took too long, it was only hers as long as she said so.

“Hurry up. We need to know what it says.” Eliza did not want to incur the vengeance that had befallen Micah. In this order, those who failed where no more. They ceased to be anything. Their cause was everything.

The lady smiled unhappily and set to the task.

“She lies in the past. So sweetly put in her despair. Our lady fine in grace is here. It is time. The moon is risen to its place in the stars, he our god is in them, ready to be.”

The priestess jumped out of the chair and walked to the witch as fast as possible without disgracing herself.

“She’s here? Now? It is for real this time?”

The witch looked around at their wide eyes and beamed in her insanity gone wrong.

“The Cwendendia is upon us. khadeorc dei gratia. The victory in hand. Bless the child’s mind, it is our gift from the hells. The prophecy proper.”

The priestess smiled back at the gypsy bitingly

“A feast to the rising of what must come. That we shall bring and we shall be rewarded duly.”

~

Chapter 19

“Can’t Conquer The Stars”

~

There was a dream I had

That ended up dead

The voices in my head

They say

They tell of dark days

Of fate ignored

Of a fate grasped

And twisted

Into more than meant

For

And they whisper

Fortis fortuna adiuvat

Asking me

Simply

Only

That I complete

The dream

That I

Alone

Make destiny real

~

##Elianne##

She stared at the board of ingredients. Crawfoot – Elvyweed – Jartionus and Black Bryony all to collect by next lesson.

Snape being the mean hearted professor had assigned the most difficult ingredients to find ever for his first years end of term project. That was unless you knew the workings of his mind well. And she thought she was beginning to.

At first glance they looked like they’d take a month to gather, either being rare or dangerous to get to. But if you though like a Slytherin for a few seconds you’d see his pattern. They were indeed not the easiest things to set especially for the timid eleven year olds that made up the class, but if you were the intrepid pupil you ought to be or likewise of the Slytherin house, you’d know exactly what to do.

She smiled at the cunning of it.

This class was easy to excel at if only you weren’t in any of the other houses.

Maybe it was her mother in her that made it ok for her.

Frankly she didn’t care, she got up to stroll out of the room whilst the rest of its inhabitants sat and chattered on its impossibleness, only to here the faint yet overpowering voice of his calling her up to the desk.

“Miss Potter, may you remain behind for a moment”

His face stood still, devoid of any movement until the last pupil had filed out.

She stood in front of the immaculate desk and gulped, swallowing her fear and wonder.

“Last nights activities did not go unnoticed. You are lucky I have not informed your head of house” he walked around to face her “but I believe I have a better reason to deal with this, in light of what it seemed you were looking for. Please do tell me whatever inane excuse it is you have, so that I may duly report it for the record. The real I would prefer to keep between us for a very good purpose.”

Her head spun at the demand. Fake an excuse? Bizarre but out rite denying an request of Snape’s was like suicide by cauldron, as you’d nearer be scrapping them out for eternity.

“I wanted to look up how to hex someone?”

“Fine, that will do. I suppose. Of course I did lecture you further on the unfortunateness of hexes and trying to perform things before your time, did I not?” the way he said it made no choice in agreement, it had in every fact happened was what it really revealed.

“Yes?” she ventured

“Good. Now onto the truth of the matter. You were looking for a book, on clairvoyancy. The book that you seek however is not employed in the restricted section, you would be wiser to look upon the history section, in particular perhaps you’d find ‘Wizard Heraldry of the Latter Ages’ by Morgana Melwater insightful.”

Her eyebrows curled in confusion

“Why? Why are you telling me this, why aren’t you giving me detention? What’s this about?”

Snape sneered at having to explain himself

“I thought better of detaining a promising student for a discrepancy that I know will not be repeated. As for the information, such a gift that you seek knowledge of has for many years lain in the lineage of the Snape family”

She didn’t like the sound of this. More and more unravelled. A ball of wool with no end, each piece becoming knotted further and further from the answer.

“Are you implying Cassandra is a Snape?”

He turned away, nearing the wall and it’s interesting splatter of Callous potion gone wrong that had been deposited by Gregor.

“Rather distantly she is of the family, of an offshoot, offspring of a Snape female who married out. Casseral Snape Hervalus. Better known to her as her grandmother and who I doubt she would know the maiden name and heritage of. Family ties in less organised pureblood families are often not documented or bothered with in much way. My estate and relatives however keep such records on anyone of direct lineage, in case of familial disputes. And I happen to know that Cassandra Elven is of such lineage.”

“So that’s why she has the gift.”

At least some of this made sense to Elianne. That one surprising fact was the only bit so far though.

“If you could call it that. In the past it was not always seen as that as you will hear of in the book I recommended. Casseral Snape had that ‘gift’” he leered the word from his mouth, spiting it “and my family were much pleased that it had passed from the name. Casseral though is not Cassandra’s grandmother, more that she is her great grandmother and my great aunt.”

Elianne frowned on this. Things did not add up like they should. Such instances bothered her. There were always gaps that needed filling, an unaccounted for that you needed to work out. Here the unaccounted-fors heaped up on her mind. What was true out of all Cassy knew? Or had she hidden things form them.

“Then what about her grandparents? What happened to them, Cassy doesn’t even know they existed as far as she’s said”

Snape carried on calmly. None of it was a care to him. None of this at least.

“Her grandparents were around in the time of Voldemort’s first coming and Judith ‘Mistala’ Hervalus her true grandmother and George Hervalus, her grandfather of Snape blood were entangled with his doings. Ultimately they defected and resisted his power, but no one ever resisted him for long, he saw to that. They both died. And I suspect as it is with many families, they are not talked out because of their dealings with the dark lord and the disgrace felt upon this. Therefore it is not surprising she knew of Casseral as her grandmother instead of Judith.”

Snape was still calm as the seashore on a bright summers day. Completely unnerved. Not quite as sunny though.

“And you think this has something to do with what’s been happening?”

Snape changed. Face aflare with rage, astounded that she knew.

“We know you were scared at Halloween, you were the only teacher who took that vision of Trelawney’s seriously. And Cassy has been acting strangely since then and before then, and suddenly you divulge this. What’s up? Something’s happening, I know. And you know. Only you know more than me. You’re using me like a puppet. On strings.”

Snape frowned deeply, obviously disturbed that his thoughts had been probed so plainly when he kept a usual demeanour with his students and all others of a cold and emotionless man, an unreadable mask; one that she’d somehow broken.

“I belong to an organisation. The Order of Charadrius. You will not know of it, you aren’t meant to. We aim to set right what is wrong in the world. After the events that led to your own father’s death, the community is evermore complacent. We however are not so naïve to think that no replacement will arrive to fill his void. And there is a threat. We are looking into things that may be significant. You would be doing us all, all of the world, a good favour by keeping any eye out on your friend. These changes to her, whatever they are, are not a good indication of what is happening. There are many uses for the gift and many people who would wish to use it to the detriment of common good.”

Elianne wasn’t sure how to take that. But anything would help it seemed.

“Well, lately she’s been so happy and I'm sure its because she hasn’t had a visions for a month almost.”

Snape paled

“None at all? That is bad.” His voice became hollow as he said it, his dark eyes faded further into his depths, “I will have to get back to you but I advise you to look out for your friend, this might be more important than you realise”

Elianne barely had time to attempt to question this when the tall dark figure of her professor and resident informant had swept out of the rooms in an uncharacteristic hurry.

+++++

##Harry##

“Here”

She handed him a cup as he leafed over old newspapers.

“Cherry tea, good for the health after illness”

He smiled at her playfully

“I don’t think being dead is an illness, it’s a bit beyond that classification.”

She smiled back and whacked him on the arm as she passed to sit down on the sofa next to him.

“Anything important?”

He grimaced and wrinkled his nose at the same time

“It’s hard to know. I don’t know what I'm looking for. But it’s good to catch up on what’s happened whilst I’ve been…gone..”

There was an uncomfortable silence.

She looked to the cup in his hand

“Finished it already?”

“Yeah”, another cheeky grin from him.

“You always did have the habit of wolfing down any food you got given”

“It must have been from the years of living with the Dursley’s”

“I guess”

She returned with another glass.

“What is it?”

He peered at its murky depths.

She scowled at him

“I made it. It’s cowslip memory potion. To help you remember anything that might aid you in this…investigation? Is that what you’d call it?”

He took the glass and swooshed the vile liquid down.

“That’s what Ron would call it certainly.”

Another silence was upon them.

She watched as he read the papers, idling over the moving photos.

“This one’s of you”

She was caught off guard and she shook herself out of her reverie.

“What?” she asked befuddled.

“You weren’t paying attention. What were you thinking of so deeply?”

“About the past. About what Ron thought. I figured that the potion might reveal something important. After all some must have done it”

“Yes, some must have, someone I trusted.” His voice was regretful to this. His eyes however had a distant anger to them.

“You couldn't think that she…”

He broke her sentence off quickly

“I could think anything, I just DON'T know anymore. Some one DID betray me. For I know now it could have been her.”

Hermione had a hard time accepting this,

“But she was your wife, you loved her, she's Elianne's mother.”

His eyes glared with his rage as he spoke. He did believe it. Just as Ron had all those years before. But it must have hurt infinitely more because he loved her.

“Doesn’t change the facts, if they tend to fit, but we'll see. Don’t know anything yet.”

“How can you condemn her”?

The words battled across between the two.

“If she did it then she deserves it”

Hermione could barely believe the roles were reversed so totally. Once the woman she now defended was her foe and once May was Harry’s lover, wife yet he now was purely positioned against her.

“But you loved her” Hermione stressed

Harry looked at her gravely; face full of lament on what went before and said simply

“Things change”

+++++

##Elianne##

At lunch Elianne sat reading the letter over and over.

It was in Hermione’s pen but it didn’t make sense.

She wanted her to come home for Christmas holiday. Fine. That’s normal. The phrasing of it bugged her. Like a hint she wasn’t privy to.

But she soon forgot what was bothering her as she listened to her friend’s queries and talk of the break.

Dido’s brother wanted wizard battle cards, the ultimate set. Dido complained about how he was missing Circe and Gregor the Great and that she was expected to buy him them for a present, using up virtually all her pocket money.

Elianne zoned out and pulled the snatched book from her satchel. Madam Pince hadn’t got as good as sight as she’d once had and it had been astonishingly easy to sneak out with the said volume.

She flipped through the book, ignoring her friend’s conversation. She passed P, Potter. Leaving that section alone for the time being, it wasn’t what was of interest right this moment. S and Snape.

The section was quite large for a wizard family. It seemed to be championed only by such families as the Malfoy’s or the old and extinct Princerald’s.

And in reading its pages she discovered another reason why Cassandra would have never been told that fateful truth of her grandparents. It seemed that it was not their fault alone for the fate they succumbed to.

Casseral had apparently faked her own death and gone into hiding following the years of Voldemort’s rise to power, this move had also threatened her son and his wife, Cassandra’s grandparents as the only possible inheritors of the gift. When they had finally comes to what would seem to be their senses they had been struck down by Voldemort only a couple of years prior to his defeat. Casseral had taken Cassy’s then young mother Elektra and raised her herself in hiding, feeling most likely responsible for Elektra’s lack of family. And in turn Elektra when older had put herself in danger by ignoring her grandmother’s advice because of a feud caused by her resentment of her grandmother’s involvement in her parent’s deaths. All of this was only documented because of Casseral Snape’s gift and the passing of it down a line that still inherited Snape blood by it. The otherwise insignificant lives would never have seen print but for this. And right at the bottom of this chain it listed Cassandra Persina Elven as the only known relative alive today descended of Cassarel Snape Hervalus. The only known recipient of the gift. Quite happily stated in an unrestricted book. Open for all the eyes that could read.

“El, what was in your letter?”

She looked up over the top of the pages to all four of them staring at her.

“Oh, just wanting me to come home at Christmas”

Lucretia smiled slyly from her to Cassandra

“Don’t you want to know what letter Cassy got recently?”

She tried to work out her friend’s meaning but Lucretia could be very good at poker faces. All of them watched her face for signs of something creeping through. The next best bet was Cassy. Who they found blushing across the table.

“Tell them about it Cassy, go on.”

Cassy blinked and turned away shyly, leaving it up to Lucretia to explain.

“She got a love letter!”

Flora squealed with glee and wrapped her hands up in mock delight by her head.

“Awww, who’s it from?”

Cassy embarrassed, replied smartly “I don’t know”

Dido from the sound of it didn’t like this “Isn’t that a little weird?”

But Flora crept back in on this “no, it’s sweet. Anonymous lover, so traditional.”

Cassy blushed a deeper shade of red at flora and offered details to reassure Dido, “It was signed from a friend”

~~

The way we were

Like always

The way that things were great

Like we wanted

The way we were

Exactly that

All in the past

Distantly a memory

That hurts

~~~

///flashback///the start of seventh year, 12 years ago – Hogwarts

##Harry##

The whole school applauded as Hermione Granger walked up to the centre of the hall, accepting her welcome as head girl. She smiled neatly and turned to shake the hand of her fellow, the head boy.

He clapped happily at her, she looked happy after all. Nothing gave anything away.

He pretended just as ever, just as last year. That everything was ok. That they were friends as they’d ever been.

But watching her chat away with the head boy on the train in her own private compartment had been quite testing of that arrangement, of him.

What ever it was that was ever happening between them, it made his blood boil sometimes.

And he scolded himself for begetting her anything other than happiness.

After last year nothing had been right.

There was that undenied tension that more than lingered with them together in a room. Undenied to fact but denied in reality to everyone, even their own lips, they never spoke of it.

He’d not figured out why but it was like they spiralled down, sinking in a ship and not getting off because no one wanted to bail the water out, no one wanted to say they were drowning.

And nobody else other than them could know.

After all they were perfect best friends

And nothing more.

The nothing more bit was what got them both.

They made a good job of lying to everyone, even themselves. The least that they knew the truth never gave him any joy. Only caused sadness.

And for his own pride he wouldn’t say anything.

Couldn’t.

And she didn’t.

And there was nothing he could do.

But watch

Watch her laugh and smile with everyone but him.

Watch her close to tears rather than admit any feeling.

Watch the anger in the mirror when he woke up to his shameful self.

Nothing would be the same again, hadn’t for a while. Wouldn’t ever be.

Because often enough things refuse to stay the same way

///end flashback///

+++++

##Elianne##

Elianne’s head whipped up at the mention of this.

“Sounds like more than a friend” Flora said, and Lucretia giggled with her at Cassy

A friend.

“Can I have a look at the letter?” she tried to cover her worry under an interested façade but she wasn’t sure she succeeded

Nevertheless, Flora et al jumped with joy at a chance to see the letter and Cassy conceded to show them all.

In the dorms flora was the first to catch the paper from Cassy’s hands. But Elianne couldn’t care less, she’d spotted the writing on it and was now frantically searching her own trunk for a letter with a rather familiar ending.

She finally pulled it out and ripped the letter from Flora’s hand much to her protest.

They all stood scared at her behaviour wondering what was wrong as she compared the two pieces of parchment.

Definitely the same handwriting. And if you looked very carefully you saw the sheen upon Cassandra’s letter. A Charm. From a ‘friend’.

“It’s not a love letter, it’s from the same person who warned me not to go out at Halloween, who didn’t want me to save Anastis. Only they really meant to get you, Cassy. They want the gift and they’ve charmed this letter. I don’t know why but I'm betting it isn’t good.”

Cassy went white with shock and started to cry, Dido supported her and helped her to a bed.

Meanwhile Lucretia insisted on inspecting the letters. Flora peered over their shoulders.

Lucretia announced to the room a minute later, confirming Elianne’s outburst

“It’s true, it’s definitely the same person and it’s definitely charmed. It’s not a nice one either. Whoever it is wants you bad and they got Anastis instead the first time. Force didn’t work so they went on to cunning. It’s not your fault you didn’t know; they were clever. As all schemers are.”

Cassy dried her tears on her sleeve. Happier that she hadn’t been easily fooled at least.

“But what do we do with it?”

One by one they glanced back and forth uncertainly.

Flora spoke up, “depends what charm it is. They want your gift so it probably controls it or something, would need to be near you.”

“The sedestrious charm I think. For that to work it would need to exist.” Dido smirked at them and grabbed the letter, casting it into the fire.

They gathered around the hearth in a semicircle, leaning on one another.

“I hope this works.”

They all nodded watching the fire burn through it fiercely until only embers glowed and ashes were all that remained. A reminder that life was different now. That they were not in command of it.

~~~

As far as

The stars go

That’s where I look to

My hopes all resting on

Some belief in what is right

And what is wrong

My eyes though

Only listen to the heavens song

The sparkle of star bright

Some likeness in my life

It lives up above

And in my heart

Dead it might be

But all I see is the past

Whatever that may be

Just a light

That warms

A smile

Just a life

Away

Drawn to it

Wishing on

As others did

The power fading

Waning for all

It is gone there

But I have here

And the times before

The ages I adore

My love fighting

For hope

Untangible

Flowing from one moment to another

Where does it go?

As far as

Where the stars are

~~~

Chapter 20

“Home Is”

~~

Feeling rather happy

Feeling rather fine

Feels so good just to get things off my mind

Feeling rather like I might fly

Because this day isn't so bad after all

Like I turned around and saw it all

A little differently

The kind of different that changes everything

That makes each bit seem completely new

The kind of different that I didn't know before

And after all

It was only the way I looked

That did anything

At all

Suddenly the sky is bright

Suddenly there is light

Where there was but shadows tall and grim

Suddenly a smile is on my face

Because I figured it out

The cord snapped that held the answer from me

It fell swiftly into my mind that moment

Whenever it happened

Didn't know

But now I see

It could have been one way

But I see another

Where there was nothing, I see something

Where there was a prison, I see choice

That is mine

Where there was fear, I let go

~~

##Elianne##

Of all the sights she’d dreamt of on the train, the one to meet her at the house after a silent car ride was not this.

Hermione’s not speaking should have clued her up to the seriousness of what awaited her at home. But could she ever have guessed this?

Her father.

Standing in the door.

Smiling at her, wondrously.

Embracing her before she’d said hello.

Taking her tightly in his arms like he’d never seen her.

He hadn’t had he.

She’d always seen him, in photos.

But to him, it was the first sight of his daughter past the age of one.

She hadn’t expected this. It felt like nothing could ruin her holiday. She’d already been given the best present ever.

A parent, who loved her.

Her real parent.

Now she almost had two.

Almost a family. Just not quite.

Aunt and father would do though.

For now.

+++++

##Elianne##

The tree stood quite cheerfully in the centre of the far wall. Dangled off it were gorgeous enchanted glass baubles and star sparkling tinsel. However there were signs that Harry had taken a lot of effort to get it there. Twigs and soil littered a trail up to its place, indicating he all but dragged it to the spot.

Hermione merely laughed and walked out to the kitchen to make most likely more mince pies.

Elianne dropped the bags there, being careful to hide Harry’s gifts deep down in it so he’d not be tempted to sneak a peek.

Speaking of her father, Elianne wondered where he was. Ever since he’d been back there had been much talking and catching up but still one question bugged her that she preferred not to bring up in front of her aunt.

She found him sitting in the study on the maroon sofa, reading some quidditch book.

“Dad?”

##Harry##

He looked up to the most amazing sight of his daughter.

Considering he’d not thought he’d ever see her again after the green light had struck him, it was a very cherished view.

“Yes?” he smiled warmly and padded the seat next to her.

She moved over to his side. Poised to say the words. Unsure if they’d hurt.

“I wanted to ask about my mother, my real mum. Kind of. Well, where do I get my red hair from?”

He chuckled at it. Happy it was nothing more difficult than that.

“Your mother had black hair as far as anyone knows but I always got the impression she charmed it like that, so it may well be she was a redhead.” His chin quickly crumpled in a sudden thought “though thinking about it, it may just as likely be from your grandmother, my mother, lily. She had red hair. But I can’t honestly say. Didn’t know much about May’s family. They’re deceased and she wouldn’t speak of them.”

Elianne looked on at him

He sensed another question coming.

“What did she look like?”

He smiled inwardly at the memory before answering.

“Look in the mirror, gorgeous like you.”

Elianne blushed a little.

But Harry carried on “Had black hair supposedly, at least to everyone other than her and violet eyes. And if you look real close you have violet specks…. just like your mother”

“….just like my mother”

They both completed the line at same time.

Elianne said out loud “jinx”

Harry’s same response delayed by a few seconds, with a beam on his face.

And followed closely by his daughters kind cuddle, as her eyes teared up to some extent.

He cuddled her back, finding it fortunate she couldn’t see his face anymore.

For it held a small anger for what May had put them through. The fact that Elianne was and always should be ignorant of that. The truth in this case being an emotionally expensive luxury. He squeezed her tighter, hoping she’d never have to know of whatever the answers became.

##Hermione##

Hermione walked in on the two relatives hugging. Elianne got up quickly and rushed off away, mumbling something about packing presents.

Harry gave Hermione a small wince, and a withdrawn sigh.

“Not going well?”

He wiped briefly at his eyes before responding.

“No, its fine. But I'm afraid. I don’t want her to know about may. And I’m worried somehow that Elianne will get caught up in this danger, with her friends, at school. All the stuff she told me about Snape too.”

Hermione didn’t move from the edge of the sofa where she perched

“You know it’s probably nothing.” She said it in a way that had a mothering tone to it

“That’s the thing, I don’t think it is nothing. It isn’t going away. The order believes…”

“The order?”

He flipped off the comment “Yeah, Ron’s organisation. The order of Charadrius. They think they mean business. They’re not the type of people who give up. I have a feeling bad will happen and this time I don’t want any harm coming to others. I’ve seen a lot of loss and pain in my time. I couldn’t handle it if I lost any more who I cared about, I don’t want to lose the people I love.”

His hand reached out across the cushion to hers, touching it briefly and then flitting back to his own lap and the pursed hold of his arms.

She glanced to him sideways in the silence.

Wondering what to say.

She didn’t have to though.

Elianne burst through, catching one look at them sitting together and made a sly salutation.

Her father simply said “Hi El.” Whilst Hermione glared at the figure, that held hands behind her back piously and bobbed on her feet up and down. With an ever eager twinkle in the eye that only interfering teenagers and Dumbledore could manage to pull off.

“Elianne”, set in the name was a coded warning that mothers are so adept at.

And daughters it seems are also immune to.

She stared back at both of them, the happy if not unwilling parents as Elianne saw them. After eavesdropping on her fathers conversation her resolve to match make them over Christmas had only been further frozen.

+++++

##Snape##

Snape poised himself closer to his reading lamp, scrutinizing the papers that a large brown owl had delivered a few minutes past.

His office was now upstairs and had a window that of course allowed for owl mail more frequently. Something that had become a precedent in the years gone by.

Besides that the dungeons reminded him of a dank future, one he did without currently. A future needed hope and he saw it better not to lock himself up these days. It seemed rather important after the war that perhaps he initiate some sort of interaction with the world, the one he’d been trying to save for so long. The only outward change of this had been the move of quarters. Else wise his demeanour was as tender less as before. There had been certain events that had seen to that.

Its long path to the potions rooms, still in the dungeons also facilitated patrolling the corridors on his way to class and catching miscreants by the handful. Enough to make his day and ruin the Gryffindor head of houses’.

Today’s papers were not the daily prophet or other wizarding monologues. Instead the heap on his desk were in a variety of languages from all around the world.

But all told the same tale.

Mosques, temples, churches; in every major city vandalised. The slogan triumph to khaos slashed and burnt into anything possible to damage.

He read over the headlines and the small summaries using the charmed linguistic glasses that allowed him to understand them.

The muggles claimed it was work of pagans or Satanists. A nice scapegoat for their world. The events coincided with Yule, a traditional pagan festival. A time indeed of great power for even wizards. The ordinary world interpreted it as mere malicious sabotage of the main religions places of worship, which was linked to the special time for the perpetrators.

Snape knew better. He feared for those they blamed. They weren’t responsible. Still they’d be punished if they could be.

Instead the real culprits stalked those cities in waiting.

None knew exactly what they had wanted out of this but Snape considered it a showing of power. A message wrapped in folklore twisted.

The dark-holly lord and the oak-sun king made the ‘normal’ series of events by the pagan calendar. As one was ruling high, the opposite brought them down and the cycle continued. At Yule the dark lord reined over the world, he brought the emptiness of winter and on Yule he was slaughtered by the sun lord, who ended the dark days, brings with him the light of the spring and summer.

By this the members appeared to be saying that this year their Dark Lord would ever still reign.

Snape only hoped they were as ever being delusional in their religious fantasies.

Luckily so far no one had been hurt.

But that might change, depending singly on them.

On whether he and his associates could hinder their undoubtedly nefarious plans.

+++++

##Elianne##

The gathering of the friends and family was taut with tension.

The guests that had arrived were making use of the time by idly fumbling with the cutlery.

The Weasley family members, minus Ron sat uncomfortably. Not since December 1999 had they all celebrated like this. The last time some of them had seen their favourite friend or near-relation, Harry Potter.

Ginny especially sat still, quietly and in melancholy.

Molly was helping Hermione with the veritable feast in the kitchen.

Elianne was entertaining many new faces. She’d never met Charlie before and was quizzing him about dragons. If not for that topic Ron knew his brother would have been answering the questions rather dejectedly.

Elianne’s bright green eyes reminded everyone of someone they didn’t want to think of.

There were only a few people present who knew of the true meaning of the day.

A diminutive group of four, with a very large, very surprising secret.

Ron looked at his watch. Hermione had popped in five minutes before, telling of dinner around about this time.

He saw Elianne rush out the room as planned.

Hermione made a big fuss of making a noise as she and molly carried the last of the food, the enormous turkey in.

Elianne took the key as planned, leading out someone from the study that no one expected to see in a million lifetimes let alone that day.

The meal went on in good order.

The shock had by now dissipated. With some of them apologising for not getting Harry a present.

Harry flagged off the comments saying seeing them after the years was enough.

Hermione meanwhile had been explaining and reasoning with molly as to why Harry being alive must be kept closely guarded. Everyone else including Elianne had nodded in agreement when Harry had announced that this was between those in the room only.

Molly finally approved of it at the mention of the press and what they’d do to the family if they found out.

The meat disappeared slowly, with molly offering seconds and third to most of the guests despite being a guest in the home herself.

Finally the wishbone was in view and Elianne implemented her carefully thought out arrangement.

“Mum, why don’t you take the wishbone?”

Hermione looked up stunned, Elianne barely referred to her like that.

“Ok, but I need someone to share it with.”

Elianne smiled and moved to look at her father

“How about Harry?” she said it so fast, all in one sentence, “Dad, would you do the honours?”

Harry got up and went to the head of the table; he stood next to Hermione and took the other side of the v shaped bone.

He closed his eyes and pulled hard.

Hermione to Elianne’s delight got the larger half

She clapped quickly in glee and shouted out “make a wish mum”

Hermione looked to be thinking of one and she closed her eyes shortly.

Elianne grinned inside. She hoped it all would be just enough to implant the idea in their minds. ‘Mum’ and ‘Dad’. A family. The perfect lot.

+++++

##___##

The priestess graced the man with her presence finally, holding out her hand to him.

He took it delicately and placed upon it such a light and masterly kiss that it surprised her.

None would know of it though. She merely smiled serenely at his placid face.

She did not wait for him to say any such things as he might, neither did he show any signs of this. She paced the beat of the room telling over the tale she spun.

“Over the ages your family has served the faction on form. They knew of their place in the history that was yet to befall the world. And your father in particular was sighted to foresee your own part in our legacy. He named you as such, Adeodatus. But I ask now what is it that you can do for me?”

The man stared deeply to her, anticipating her every move, that she would find herself eerily looking to his black eyes as she finished her command.

He continued to stare into her, leaning in only to her it seemed. An unearthly expertise he held in it, that he could hold power and will over someone of her position.

She shivered, breathed in sharply, drawing away from his gaze.

It still dug into her bones.

This was what she knew he was made for.

He was to be their leader.

Theirs to follow where there had been none. Where a vacuum had been, he filled the void. In everyway she saw he was more than any other before.

He was the one who’d take them to the Cwendendia. He’d find her no matter what, no matter the cost.

And it was the right way, for any of them, even her, would give their lives to achieve the destiny that was previously denied. As it was just in waiting.

Now the time had come.

She stepped down from the wide pedestal she’d stood on and dropped down to her knees, bowing to him.

“We are yours.”

~~

Thin tendrils of fire

My dreams cast in desire

Descended from angels

Fallen from earth

Last touches of grace bestowed

On the fragile life

A chain of people

To make a trail of events

Littering history with traces of hope

They provided enough, just

To save us, from

Our own self hate

Condemning their fate

Changing what would be

If hope does die,

Where will we be

They are gone

For us

The world differs

But is still the same

Their love

A wish, blown out into the wind

A final whisper

Taken, their voices

To speak for them,

For what they'd wanted

The cherished part, they had to save

They are done

The grace all but gone

Lingers just enough for one to see

Its ending flickering embers

Stayed to see that its end was seen

And that it would inspire

A single mind

To take on the quest

We have to want to change

~

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

~~

In reference to a certain scene in here, tried not to make it mushy and it would make more sense if you read the tie-in fic for this, “To The Future”.

Chapter 22

“Dead Inside Is How It Feels”

~~

Piercing scream

Cut at the heart

Icy sweat pouring

Sheets ripped

In the struggle

To breathe once more

The touch of life

To counteract the chill

Of the absolute terror

The pictures presented to you

Blackened, dead

All around, smelted earth

Spears, daggers

Sharp flashes

The raven sitting

Watching horribly

Smirking with its beak

Warning you

Never to be naïve

Never to trust

That you’ll wake up

~~

##Cassandra##

The short sharps sounds, like gasps came at a rash rate. She couldn’t breathe. Stifled by the awfulness of the dream, the fear of the darkness she confronted.

Just a dream she repeats to herself.

Trying to control her breathing.

Yes, only. Not real.

A hand appears at her curtain, and 3 faces.

All worried.

They open it up and cover her, piling onto the bed.

Comforting her silently.

+++++

##Harry##

He sat at the desk, at home. What had become his in the past months.

He stared at the first letter he’d received from Elianne herself.

Writing back was harder than it seemed.

Trust his daughter to wonder about things that were difficult to explain.

Like her questions on Hermione.

What was she like? She only ever talked about the school, the subjects, the trio and adventures. I noticed she was head girl. She never said.

How was she?

Hard to say completely.

Studious. Yes, oh yes. So very much, so dedicated. She’d stayed up revising in the library every night for three months before the N.E.W.T.S

He remembered well. He’d sat with her every night after the first two months. He’d been concerned she was overdoing it.

Though that was never quite the full account, as he could recall it.

/// flashback///

Year 7, near O.W.L.S time - Hogwarts library

##Harry##

They’d been there since half four. Harry had soon got bored of the various tomes but she’d eagerly read all she could. Eating up volumes upon volumes. Tonight’s subject was Potions. He’d had less patience with that than his other topics. Alas Hermione excelled as always in ALL subjects including his worst.

She wouldn’t help him either. He could practically hear her pointed tone, saying “you can only learn by experience and by hard long work”.

It was now 10pm. Everyone else had deserted the place. Even Madam Pince had packed up long ago, leaving them be with dejection.

He looked to her.

Her eyes furtively danced across the page, reading at great speed.

She bit her lip in concentration.

He found himself unable to turn away from her.

Mesmerised, he stared deeply, etching her features into memory.

Disturbed only when she too looked up, to him.

For a few brief seconds his brain whirred with thoughts.

What would she do, why was he looking at her, what’s happening.

But he knew the answers to all of these.

As he lent into the kiss his heart leaped with joy, the moment he’d been waiting for.

That had been avoided for ages, circled anxiously and played around, ignoring feelings.

Lying to themselves.

Because he knew she wanted it as much.

Her eyes had said so, many a time.

And many a time it had not been. Tears had come to closed lids. With excuses for the hurt. Reasons why not, reasons to escape the risk.

He wanted more than friendship.

Only that could quell the desire in his soul.

The emptiness. What he fought for.

##Hermione##

She sensed his presence; he bored into her skull with a stare, a look.

Something she gave into for a minute number of glorious seconds.

Then she burst forth, through the aisles, running, fleeing.

Crying stiffly and quietly she did not listen to his plea as he searched for her in the corridors of books.

She heard him leave the room seeking her outside of it.

Then she sobbed violently.

Her heart of fire, the picture of the short happiness engraved, burning her.

It hurt to deny, always had. But when you knew the truth, that it wasn’t theory. Proven that you could have it. Then denying tortured your spirit.

Why had it been like this?

Not giving in. Afraid of hurt.

Fake love. Famous, he could have anyone. He’d use her. Just infatuation, won’t last, too young. Friends; would spoil the friendship. Won’t last, then more hurt.

And now it was this.

He’ll die, then more hurt. Can’t commit to someone who won’t live; who’s in the firing line. Can’t interfere with history. Voldemort must be brought down, can’t sacrifice the future to whims.

She knew this was coming from that day in year three.

Had thought it might not, might have been changed because of that

But No.

And nor had what she’d seen of the far future.

That she caused the death of Harry Potter;

His sacrifice to her and that misfortune for the world.

Couldn’t swap love for the safety of everyone she treasured, including him.

##Harry##

He noticed her flinch.

Saw movement in the corner of his vision.

Turned away, no one there.

And turned back. No Hermione where there had been one.

He caught sight of her body rushing away.

From him.

Why, why, why?

How could he be that stupid?

He wished he’d never done it.

Wonder why they do this dance?

Cruel and twisted. Stepping on toes with each and every step.

Hard nosed boots;

And fragile feet.

//end flashback//

+++++

##Leander##

School was not the same.

Lessons were ok.

Snape was not the same either. He hurried, acted genuinely glum.

And neutral. No points taken. No points rewarded either. To any house.

Slytherins were confused.

Gryffindors suspicious of how long it could last.

Only blossoming relationship with Flora and Leander cheered her classmates.

And only then it was really just because he in the worst of his times was fine.

An example. If when surrounded by darkness you could shine bright, then everyone else would be alright.

They didn’t see that although his world was filled with shining, a great love and warmth; it was only her that kept him afloat, awake from his depression.

Alone in the tower she watched him cry gently, not wanting even her to see what he regarded as a spectacle.

“Leander, its alright to let it out.”

She patted him on the back consolidating him

“Don’t worry, I'm here for you.”

She started to cry herself.

Sitting in the pale cold greyness forever.

Why the pain for him she thought.

Life never made sense.

She was lost. His best friend, a cousin –technically-, as was her being. Alive was what they called it. He’d logically seen through the phrase. She was on critical. That only ever meant you were closer to death than life. As that was why it qualified as extreme. On the borders. Tipping steadily over. A car on a cliff. One wrong move and it falls.

Down towards the jagged edges and the constant.

Despite all his family said, it was singly hope they spoke of. He knew in it that she was leaving them. Nothing to be done. Nothing to stop the way he was feeling. Would continue to feel like this until the inevitable.

He for the first time in an hour, glanced round to her.

Flora.

Seeing a face full of tears and yet still captivating.

A beautiful visage, that took his sadness away.

“I know you’re here. It’s not fair though, that everyone doesn’t have someone like I do.”

+++++

##Hermione##

The second letter of the day for Hedwig. Harry’s owl, returned by Sirius. His owl who was now resident in her home and at her disposal rather advantageously.

The scrawled parchment was in reply to Ron.

She meant to ask why his associates i.e. Snape where involving her daughter in this business.

It took a while to get to her that Elianne wasn’t her daughter. She wasn’t, was she. Never really had been at all.

His talk of the attacks had distracted her thoughts further though.

It wasn’t commonly talked of. Everyone knew what was going on.

They just lacked an understanding. They feared what was happening.

No one liked to think the way Ron did.

That there was someone filling the space left years ago.

He said they had agents on the insides. Gathering information. Finding out what they could. All they could to stop them and their plans, their attacks.

And it was on both worlds.

The muggles still blamed it on the hapless usual suspects.

Linked it to the events of Yule.

The M.O.M. had made no press statement on it.

Reports underplayed what was known of the happening.

Ron had said they wanted to reassure people. The newspapers didn’t say either. The truth was left out as such.

Try to calm people down. That’s what the editors had said to her. Don’t say anything negative. Don’t speculate. Pretend it’s ok for now.

They knew panic was ready to strike ripe.

Parents had withdrawn children from magical schools around the globe.

Not a great number but enough to inspire trepidation.

She’d quit.

Duty was to the public and for the truth.

Thank god the real world press wasn’t sensitive to the issue.

But they too lacked the knowledge that created the view of the authentic scene.

She tried to bring to mind what she’d read on the matter. The half poked facts they told.

The very journal she’d worked on for the last 4 years. Quaintly turning its cheek at the ministry’s beckoning.

She scrambled in the desk drawers and the paper rack on top the table, looking for today’s issue.

She sighed, resignating to having to move to another room to find it. If Harry hadn’t taken it with him on his business somewhere.

Might as well make some tea whilst she was at it.

Peppermint sounded refreshing at this time in the morning.

She got back and curiously stared at what lay on her desk.

Issue 458 of the Kalashi Khronicle.

Right in the middle of the wooden slab.

It hadn’t been there when she’d gone to the kitchen.

Strange.

She called out for Harry.

No response.

Checking the house she didn’t find him either.

She came back to the magazine.

Maybe she’d neglected to see it in a dizzy. The way the most obvious thing is overlooked when you search for it.

What else could it be?

Wandless magic. She scoffed at her own rash hypothesis.

There was evidence. Evidence ultimately lead you to the accurate conclusion. As long as it was followed by a correct analysis.

Research on it could prove useful.

But she barely doubted the incident was merely an odd occurrence of a selective display. You look so hard you can’t see what you’re looking for.

Regular science taught many clearly rational things she felt applied to magic. Including Occum’s Razor.

The simplest explanation must always be true.

+++++

##Snape##

Snape bided his time outside the grimy pub.

A _muggle_ pub.

He itched in the rough fabric and constraint of trousers.

His thoughts centred on Draco.

There was that explanation, of why he could never kill him.

He was subject to the same misfortune Yvette was.

Wrong person, wrong time, wrong place.

Whichever.

He couldn’t control his father, nor his talent.

Severus could not let anger get the better of him that night.

Draco had emerged shaken, scarred perhaps for the duration of his pitied existence.

He had emerged. That once gracious act Severus attributed to Yvette. She saved the boy from beyond the grave. For Snape had known she would not want more pain, more death. He left the slaughter of the masked fiends to whatever justice was. But he was a child practically, forced, who’d remember with a vengeance what he had done.

That was Draco punishment. His penance to those he’d destroyed was to avert its happening once more.

Likewise, none could have predicted the defection of someone so close to Potter. Though it was more the other way. They’d been on the dark side all along, playing them. With their loyalty understandably placed elsewhere.

But even after those events, he could not at the end of the day blame Draco, nor himself. He’d wrestled with these issues in those five solitary years before coming back to reason.

Draco had his unborn daughter to think about, could not refuse. Was a hurtful legacy that the Malfoys where enthralled in that brutal plot.

Another point scored that it hit the Snape heir too.

That it all helped to the greatest wizard of their days, most spitefully too from life, that he was also had the darkest heart. A beast, seeking immortality, pain inflicted, supreme rule. Almost aspiring to be a god. In all his years Tom Marvolo Riddle had never changed his goal. Not even when such a small boy had destroyed him so nearly.

+++++

##___##

The blonde woman spiked her head up. Eyes blacker than black. Equal to an abyss.

She had sensed a change in the order of the realm.

“Are you any closer to finding her?”

Thomas’ voice echoed off the enclosed walls as did his shadow in the dim light.

“Rachelle says she felt something in the ether, an energy peak.”

He smiled dearly at his prodigy.

“How does she…know… this?” he questioned her in a teacherly manner.

“She’s a feeler. A seer in approach. Though blind and deaf to what it is.”

He smiled again. Glad she had that talent, that she did not fail him.

“I know. I have heard of their breed.”

Eliza very subtly arched her brow. Annoyed at his testing.

She still told him, fearful of reprisal if she questioned her father.

“They are becoming evident, only a matter of time before she uses it again, and more powerfully. We will have the Cwendendia in good time. In time to please Adeodatus more than pleasantly.”

His smile widen at the news.

“Tend to Rachelle. She has done excellently. And I believe she will be drained in doing what she allowed. Give her plenteously. As a reward for a great service.”

She moved away curtly, her position blank to his pleased exterior.

“You too have done well my Elizabeth.”

She came forward to his praise and knelt humbly,

“You live up to what is great in you. I am honoured.”, to which he tilted her cranium to kiss her forehead in an imperial fashion.

“You’d do well to remember that always. Failure is not tolerated. Not by our Pater. Not by yours.”

He walked away, through the secretive altar door. To a place she couldn’t follow.

~~

Just a game played

Figures

Twisted

Turned

Burned down

And taken down

With more replacing them

Villains

Heros

Always someone else

To fill their place

To step up

To the empty castle

Their void, their challenge

Be better than before

And

Once

This time

There’s something that is

A conspiracy of days

That’s been in the making

Longer than most

And its chance are

Greater than most

But still

We are all players

Pieces moved by the master

And they never want to play themselves

Wondering why

We walk forward

Into the next battle

Fought for an unknown reason

Yet all else is because

It has to be

We’re going to do

What we have to do

For whoever’s up there

For whatever there is to it

~

REVISION – just for those who may be wondering, Wandless magic as in this fanfic (chapter 22) is based on an idea that they have it when young and is provoked by fear, anger etc. by extremes. And they then grow out of it, losing the talent as they learn the structured form of using a wand. Therefore any adult magicians left with the ability are VERY rare.

Also for any who are confused by the ending of this chapter, reread the previous chapter carefully and it will make more sense, perhaps my hints are a little too subtle or tenuous, but they are there. There is a reason.

Chapter 23

“Tempestuous Realities”

~~

A blind love we had

But never saw

Denied I guess

Faked

Into blankness

Not a kiss to be adored

Our misfortune framed instead

Couldn't be, wouldn't let it be

A blind love - yes

Saw nothing more than him and her

Saw nothing more than what could be

Of what might be

That maybe would hurt the other

So strong it wouldn't be

So strong they'd deny it

If it meant one iota of pain felt

So strong distance meant nothing

Years, time, pointless

The hold of it gathering to

Wherever, whenever

The hold of it no one else's to brake

Not even theirs, not their choice

So strong

Because

Its fate

And some things depend on

What must be

For the world to be

~

##Hermione##

She picked up the cup; downing the sweet milky tea she needed to wake herself up.

An 8 o’clock start. Such fun.

But her editor had been adamant she cover the story. Down to London it was then.

Commuting on the train. Crammed like a sardine. Lovely.

She gathered her keys together and left the newspaper on the table unread, waving a short flutter of the hand to a rather muggy looking Harry. He yawned and nodded in recognition, and so she departed. Wondering what today would hold.

+++++

##Elianne##

They woke to a shrill sound of a magical alarm.

Crowding round the window they saw already grouped together figures down on the field being instructed into formation.

All questions about to be voiced were interrupted by the barrage of several Gryffindor prefects who hurdled them out of the dorm. To the awaiting queues and huddles of students below the castle on the drizzly morn.

+++++

##Harry##

He picked up the unfinished letter. Written to Elianne.

Somehow he’d got side tracked on things.

The key opened the lock, to what he’d been missing those years.

Ironic it was her that had done it. all his daughter seemed to be intent of creating was one perfect happy family. With him and her adoptive mother together.

She just didn’t know that it would at least in one brief meaning be an again.

Or could have been if Hermione hadn’t said what she’d said to him.

Back in seventh year. The words he’d hated to think ever since.

***

Why was what had always got me.

I knew all the reasons. But then they were totally useless to me.

She only gave one, the biggest. -Save the friendship. Don't risk it.-

And I agreed.

Before that it was unspoken. I'd known as much by the way we forced ourselves to act.

But then she'd voiced the concern.

And even better, what bugged me is I knew that wasn't it.

It could have been true. It sounded perfectly logical, sensible, emotionally right.

But it wasn't her reason; it was her excuse.

And it bothered me further that she could not trust me. That she thought it an unbound problem, unsolvable alone or between us.

And that was why things changed to how they'd become in that last year, what was left of it.

My love ceased to be a longing, a pining. Instead I was angry, angry at her for doing this to herself and mostly to me. She'd made a choice that effected both of us. Not simply her. I felt she had no right to do the right thing as she felt. Not when she wouldn't tell me what it was for, when it damned me too.

That was what the leaving was about.

After graduation I left for France.

Embittered over how screwed my life had been so far.

And I found something I wasn't expecting.

Love.

Liza May.

Or May as she preferred.

Lived in France most her life.

Was an orphan, like me.

Had been in hiding alot, moving from families and friends. Never with a true home.

She gave the impression she lacked much understanding of wizarding.

She was a witch and had acquired adequate skills in basics and a few areas. Potions was one.

She loved potions, as she'd cooked for herself over the years at a young age. Paying her way with those talents she'd had.

I'd barely realised how things could be so different for a magical person. Not going to school, not being taught, not getting qualifications - an introduction into the world. Or a family.

I found I felt a certain bonding to her. Her hardship worse than mine in some ways, Though not as deep in other.

She'd had plenty of people who'd cared for her, friends. Just that she had always moved on.

I wondered if it was part of her defence mechanism to avoid getting attached.

I wondered because I wondered if I'd end up left by her like the others she'd known.

That never happened.

I stayed there and helped her, taught her magic, befriended her.

When it came time to leave, we couldn't leave each other.

In the time that had been idyllically spent in Paris, I'd forgotten my anger, my pain. May made it all go away. Her happy smiling face constantly lit with pleasure, an adoration of the world.

Like she was constantly suddenly freed and taking in everything possible.

That never left her much.

She settled down a bit.

But always she smiled that great adorable smile.

And I allowed myself to think I loved her.

Maybe I did

For that while.

A year.

Hermione didn't come into it.

She'd made her choice.

And I'd turned round and made mine.

I'd have happiness. The pain would go away.

May did that for me.

Hermione was Hermione, my best friend. The way she'd wanted.

I never shed tears for her about it.

She took it well.

It made me think I was doing the right thing. She didn't show any sign of being heartbroken. Almost as if there never was anything between us and so I went right on and said the solemn words on my wedding day.

Somehow in retrospect it looks like Hermione caused this all. The beginning of the path I took shaped by her. Whatever it was that made her do what she did.

However it was not Hermione who lay in blame.

It was May's fault, she betrayed me I'm sure.

And it was my fault for never checking up on her, for being naive, ignoring what even Ron could see plainly.

Blame seems pointless when I think of it today.

For we all played a serious part in it.

Why did it have to end like this?

I'd lost 10 years of my life, and of my daughters.

I'd burdened Hermione with Elianne’s upbringing. Ruined her relationship with her parents and with finding her true love.

Though I can't help but think.

Were we ever really out of love?

My feelings are so confused. This just isn’t the time to explore anything. There's little time left now though.

I'm left forever thinking. What should I do? Knowing that sometime I will have to make it up to her and to us all. But now is not that instance.

***

He hauled his face up from his morose trance.

A Hogwarts owl sat on the desk in front.

An official stamp on the letter.

The writing scrawled hastily.

~

What is the world today

In chains people are

Do they live

All there is, is the frail

If we live, we're broken

So much unspoken

Taboo - lips sealed

No voice - can't heal

The past is done

No one will move on

A sad tune forever playing

A concerto

For my dead mother

No nurture, no cure

Living; if it is

Left dampened, the sound dull

Ears not wanting the words

Won't listen

Looking to the only love

The short star on the tree

Wonky, chipped and grated

Pretending its like it was

That you can still adore it

Why not how it is?

Not so bad really

It’s not perfect

Far from it

Please accept it

Cherish it for what it was, could be somewhere else

Don't lie though

The world - its stuck

Stopped moving

Core shaking

Ready to break apart

Lies did no good

It could not go on

Whatever you said

The past doesn't seem that close

Yet we are always within it

Don't we see that

Or are we in a clouded mirror

A patch untouched - never escaping

Not trying

~

##Hermione##

She pulled up in the taxi and peered up at the great arch of the royal academy of art.

The sign swung outside in the courtyard. Advertising the Ancient Germanic Exhibition. A rolled sticker slapped over it clearly stating it was cancelled until further notice.

She walked through the hall, flashing a press pass and quick explanation at the busy ticket desk. She proceeded up the steps. Ready to be greeted by Thomas Hall.

She checked her watch, 11.14am. More or less on time for her interview.

A pleasant man said a hurried hello to her, escorting her to the crime scene quickly.

The police scrambled round the massive empty plinth. Odd officers dusting for prints and carefully searching for any evidence left by the perpetrators.

“There it is… or was” he announced.

She moved round to the sight, noting the vastness of what should have been standing there.

“It took quite a bit of man power to get the thing in here. Weighs thirty tonnes. Shipped from Germany. Specially for the new exhibit. Of course now that’s been postponed.”

She raised any eyebrow at his discourse whilst jotting down the facts.

“What was it exactly? Any idea why it was stolen?” she said as she continued to walked around the area.

“Have a looked at the photos. Taken just a few days ago. When it was freshly installed. No mean feat. Yet they plucked it out from under our noses. No idea how. Not with something that heavy.”

She examined the photos carefully, finding the monolithic structure peculiar.

He answered her forthcoming question as if it was one he practically expected by default.

“ Jacobs slab. Named after Alyssa Jacobs, the archaeologist who found it. Dug it up in West Germany. Mind you no one has come up with a better name, merely because they don’t know what it is.”

He moved over next to her, pointing to a space on the picture.

“They’ve got theories you see but nothing adds up. Right there, there’s out-crops with holes carved into the stone. Some say it was a sacrificial monument, with the victim bound in using ropes, through the holes. But nothing would survive like that so they really can’t tell if that’s true. Besides if it is that, its never been used. It hasn’t got a single weapon mark or bloodstain on it. Excuse me for putting it so bluntly as to be gruesome.”

She smiled faintly at his politeness.

“That’s ok Mr. Hall. I’ve heard much worse.” She silently thought I’ve seen much worse.

He carried on explaining it as she listened with interest about the unusual exhibit.

“Others have guessed at what it was. Temporary coffin, used for a wake. Even a ‘meditation platform’ or some sort of solitary confinement station. Truth is no one knows. And it isn’t worth anything to anyone who isn’t in the museum business. Past that the reasons or better yet the humungous how they got away with something akin to small house is damn spooky.”

She looked up at him, knowing full well any ideas she had of how it could be thieved wouldn’t go down well on a muggle or with her editor, judged there and then that there wasn’t much else here to go on. Except for ‘mysterious’ disappearances. Strange phenomena this was not.

+++++

##Snape##

Snape overlooked the children, who diligently lined up to board the carts to the train station.

All parents had been informed. At least all the owls had been sent to deliver correspondence to their homes. He doubted they’d all be at the platform to greet their dear prodigies.

If not never mind. They’d all get sent somewhere.

Somewhere safer than this.

He forked off his duties to a prefect. He knew Charlotte was responsible enough to gather the lost Slytherins before the carriages departed.

He had more pressing responsibilities.

The attacks had begun far earlier than intelligence had testified. But then they had been out of the ranks for a while. Only one agent was still inside the cults lines.

They’d hadn’t reported for months. Now seemed like the perfect time to call up their missing comrade. At a place prior to any risk to him and when they needed all he knew most. Severus Snape shifted into the shadows as he knew how to best and made for the rendezvous point. Ready to for briefing and action.

Anything to stop them from doing more damage than they already had.

Perhaps a little too late for Hogwarts. The wards had fallen in the early hours of the night, a little after sunrise.

They lacked the knowledge of how they’d been broken.

But more urgently there was the rest of the world to defend.

~~

My thoughts

Ring around

Head deep down

Something stirring

Nothing right today

What was it?

That I said

Should it be safe?

Here

Where I should have nothing to fear

Safety being

Not enough

Doesn't shake

Any worries away

Thinking of

Not enough

How do I fill

A place that lye’s so still

And far past me

Did not find

Not sure

It makes a difference

My thoughts

Still whirring

Not settling

For nothing can settle me

~

##Harry##

He climbed through the masses of passengers departing the nearest train on no.3.

He didn’t stop to look before running through the barrier to get Elianne.

All he could think of was, ‘was she safe?’

He grasped her agonizingly tightly in his arms the moment she came off the Hogwarts Express.

She would have said something about the fuss except none of the students were in the spirits for anything much more than a forced smile, that turned to frowns after the first few seconds.

He stood there with Elianne and friends, not knowing what to do.

The other girls glanced around worriedly, obviously not seeing any signs of their parents.

Professor Isaacs walked up to the girls handing them a letter each, all except for Elianne.

“I'm afraid the whole country is on alert. Hogwarts wasn’t the only place that was attacked. As I understand, many students’ guardians did not reply to the emergency letters. In circumstances such as those you are to proceed to the nearest safe house and stay put for the time being. I know this must be hard but its evacuation procedure. All for your own good.”

The young teacher looked squarely at Harry for a minute, curiously.

“Who are you? A relative of Elianne’s I suppose?”

He hesitated, wishing he could say the truth, knowing it wasn’t wise to. He hazarded a rough answer.

“Elianne’s guardians boyfriend. George Tiller. Hermione couldn’t make it. She was out at work when I got the owl.” He held out a hand ready for an embrace. Isaacs just nodded, accepting what he’d said.

“Where do you live?”

Harry fumbled in his mind for the name.

Elianne beat him to it “The green cottage, its on the floo”

“Good enough. You’ll be sent via the fireplace in the stationmasters’ office. The rest of you girls better go, it doesn’t look like there will be anywhere else and nicer to stay with a friend, hey?” he tried to prompt a smile out of the group.

Dido was gracious enough to be polite. Hers even looked half true as she turned her lips upward slightly to the handsome man.

“This way then” he said, motioning them to follow. “Once you’ve gone through the link to the floo network will be locked down for security. Leaving you time for a holiday of sorts. Plenty of time for reading and homework.”

They tagged on to his trail to the room.

Watching idly as they passed the other queues of children and parents being led to transport back to what was hoped to be shelter.

+++++

##Hermone##

She opened the door to the beep of the answering machine.

Deciding to ignore it in favour of slumping into her favourite armchair.

She forgot all about having some tea, reading the papers. She absolutely desparately required rest. 2hours standing up on the train was agony. All she wanted now was a shower.

That would take the pain away.

She closed her eyes.

Imagining the warm water rinsing over her.

Washing the aches down the drain.

Wet, slick, perfect for relaxing in.

Steamy air all around, keeping her temperature steadily heated and most of all comfy.

She opened her eyes to the realization she wasn’t in the living room anymore.

The water dripped down over her face.

Blinding her.

She struggled to step out of the shower, pulling a towel off the rail as she did to cover herself in. Her clothes soaked. She cried at it.

***

What had just happened?

She sat on the bed shivering but not out of coldness.

It was like before. More serous though this time.

She wished for something - and it happened.

Nice in a fairyland. But in the real world it scared her.

What if she got mad at someone and then she wanted them to….

No. This was not good.

She didn’t like it.

Where to go?

St. Mungo’s? She’d never heard of anything remotely similar to this. What if they couldn’t treat it?

Harry? Where was he? What if she hurt him with this?

Who was there? Was here anyone she could trust this to?

***

A noise stirred her from her seat.

She called out from the bedroom nervously.

“Who’s there?”

A flash of movement in the mirror caught her attention and she crooked around to establish its source.

She never got a chance to finish deciding where she’d go.

There was smash and a cloud of coloured smoke enveloped her. She couldn’t help but breathe it in, there simply was no other air.

And in the few hazy moments she experienced, her vision blurred by whatever potion they’d surprised her with, she was surrounded by a robed gang. All reaching out to her. Going to carry her away. And in amongst the faces she saw as the moved her, she thought she saw a familiar glimpse. Of long black hair and a woman with violet eyes. Who smiled somewhat viciously at her.

“Welcome home Hermione” she purred in a silky voice “you’ve no idea how long we’ve been waiting for you.”

~

Chapter 24

“The Deep Ages”

~~

In that light

There is a bright gem

That sparkles whenever

Where ever it may be

However it is

A smile of sadness

A grin of delight

Either

Just as brilliant

(Just as bright)

The dream

That it never fades

Away like all the others

A hope it won't

Not like all the others

Don't want to see it fall apart

Crushed under the weights

There is that pleasure

The perfection of what it is

That it’s found the greatest fear

Unknown

Often it is in darkness

Where you can see

Nothing else illuminates it quite as well

As that lack of what you seek

Enabling you to see

Letting you in on

The news

Often it is in the darkness

Where you fall

That you meet

The unlikeliest people

~

##Harry##

He glanced quickly around the shabby mess left of their living room.

Running through the house, he ignored the protests and screams of the girls.

Hermione, where was she?

Was she here when it happened?

In the bedroom he caught the foul scent of the dead knockout potion.

And Hermione’s possessions scattered all over the place.

He knew people only ever used that for when they want the person. Anything else and they’d just stun or blind. It would be easy enough.

Knockout potion however lasted hours. Long enough to take them anywhere you wanted to.

By now the entourage surrounding Elianne had found its way along with her through the torn house, to that room.

They stood taking it all in.

“She’s gone isn’t she?”

He could only nod.

His mind spun at who would do it. There was an answer. Though to him it made hardly any sense.

There was a sound almost like a fluttering of wings.

He looked to the open window, in awe at the sight.

A lighted creature so brilliant shone eminently from where the gap had been in the completely smashed glass pane.

It encompassed the whole room with its great honour. Filling the small space with its incomprehensible song. Melodic notes formed by its inhuman vocals. A ringing in the brain, in fact in every cell, of a certain kind of undeniable truth to what it intoned. A meaning the resonated within. Indescribable for mere mortals.

Elw’in nerayad galass gallim

Sephe ner’ei jaroh hasshim

Ll’reta bleweyd kalli hassar

Ley marot kilea’y ishwelya

Elw’in kha’os nariitem shaela

Ellelwy marew let isteu

Wayr gal’lem lashir

Way’r estisa lel eltana

S’ynau li’lwy utam ol’lf

Fash qilh’so narram do’til

The last sounds waved out to their ears softly, creating an air of sentience.

And as quickly as it had appeared, the apparition faded from very existence.

Leaving a hole that seemed vastly dark against what it was.

Cassandra started to speak slowly, as he’d never heard before.

In a glassy trance her lips urged on in a graceful coarse whisper.

:::: they tell of a daughter of darkness, of a darkness not from here. He changed the way of our world to make Her, he took power to give to Her. He wants it. He wants the darkness. Khaaeod. He wants it. He wants his. He wants his……..

As if it took everything from her to do it, she collapsed heavily, ending the brief séance of interpretation.

Elianne mournfully took in the stance of the situation. Things did not look good.

“What should we do?”

Harry chided her for being impetuous. It wasn’t easy being in charge. Not of yourself. Certainly not of four others incapable of doing anything themselves.

“Quiet Elianne”

He gathered his thoughts together. Who would be able to help?

The order, yes.

“I’ve got to go somewhere”

Elianne whined at him, obviously scared.

“But what about us! They said it’s dangerous. And the floo’s off as well.”

He tried to keep calm. This wasn’t what he needed now. However there was only one option.

“Fine you’ll all have to come with me.”

He secretly added the thought that where they were going they’d be much safer anywhere.

Where they were going was the place that put a stop to this.

“You two help Cassandra up. We’ve got to get going right this minute.”

He didn’t like the idea that Hermione wasn’t in control. She knew what to do usually. She had the knowledge, the skill. Always. She could always pull it off. Whatever it was. If she couldn’t help herself how could he? It had been too long since he’d had to act the hero.

The girls already at her side, moved to support her fragile form as she stood up wearily.

Elianne tugged on Harry’s shoulder.

“I hate to ask but how are we getting there?”

He would have grinned happily at his plan if it hadn’t been under such dour circumstances. He presumed Hermione had never mentioned the flying carpet he’d owned before. And for first years it would be interesting. Brooms where one thing. Carpets, well lets say they’re a bit more heady.

“Don’t worry. Just get ready to hang on.”

~

Love saved everyone

But those who left before

Without will

They died

I lied saying I could do it

That it was a job

Just a job

For it was murder really

And I made it real, truly

They did the task

I unlocked the fatal door

My key the one

Could have not given in

Could have saved them too

But in that someone still

Always has to sacrifice

Happiness born from pain

A transference

That quote that says as much

Joy is only stealing from another

That you make them miserable

A selfish system

And I chose

Now I repay

The life of mine

Short-lived happiness

Because Now I repay

Now I give back my years

For only one I took

I give back

For all those I forsake

My pain half as good

For I am alive

They are not

~

##___##

The medium build man strolled into the concrete corridor, thinking as he walked to him welcome what it was to be here.

His many colleagues gasped and stared at the presence of their long lost friend.

He’d changed he knew. Of course. Working undercover meant sacrifices had to be made. Usually.

But he quite fancied the way he’d ended up.

His blonde hair long and bound back in a tight tail of leather cord, the black robes flowing around him in a manner that reminded him of his mentor.

He could get used to being adored. That egoistic behaviour wasn’t seen at the ‘monastery’.

Everyone there lived to serve the great god. Blah blah…BLAH.

But they’d overdone it and that was why he was here.

He swaggered in to the head office.

Where Snape resided in his absence.

Severus Snape.

The man who’d saved his life.

It sounded better than the man who’d spared it at least.

+++++

##Harry##

The compound buzzed on the go as the group entered.

Barely anyone noticed they were there.

Or only a few cared.

At the middle of the fuss was a face Harry and Lucretia in any case hadn’t thought they’d see.

Draco.

Standing around a great magicked map, was Draco, Snape and a few other important intelligent looking people.

By the look of the plan, which had mini figures planted all around the globe, they were up to solving the current crisis.

Harry wondered how he’d get anyone’s attention in the hectic bustle.

Lucretia, however, did what was only natural to do.

She shouted out to him “DAD!”

Malfoy looked up to another malfoy. A lump caught in his throat as she bounded towards him. *Why was she here? How was she involved in this? Please don’t let her be.*

##Draco##

Draco had committed a terrible crime. In the past. Unintentional. Forced, yes. But done.

One reason he’d never sacrificed himself.

Why he’d foolishly thought he could stall. That he’d fail. That it would be ok.

And why all those people had died.

Was his fear for his then unborn child.

Perhaps it was that, he reasoned, that was why he kept away from her. Not just that old predictable excuse about Pansy Parkinson being her mother and the Parkinson genes Luce possessed.

She was his weakness.

+++++

##Draco##

They all crowded round a large table, in a secluded part of the compound. A secretive conference room as it was.

With confused talks going on.

Draco it turned out wasn’t the greatest spy on the earth.

Snape’s voice made the man shrivel in fear. “Why is it that you cannot return to your position exactly? The position that we need now more than ever.”

Draco gulped. Feeling once again evermore the stupid schoolboy.

“I snuck out a couple of times. It got them suspicious I think. After this I doubt they’ll ignore it.”

Snape glovered at him, totally oblivious to the wondrous stares the rest were giving his performance.

“Why may I ask did you ‘sneak’ out? What was so important you risked the whole Paris set up for? You knew after Georgia and Adam were compromised that you were THE only operative in their system. THE only one left to gather VITAL intelligence for us. Yet it seems you lack intelligence, or you might have been able to bring us more.”

Draco glanced briefly across the room before answering. He spoke it out feebly. The chorus of a battered child, afraid of wrongdoings, of what it would get him.

“I went to visit my daughter.”

Snape said nothing to this.

He moved his back to Draco and addressed the remaining audience. Ready to address the problem they were in.

“Draco. Please explain to our friends and colleagues about the threat. They won’t know.”

He never turned to talk to the man; he never batted an eyelid at the change in condition.

Draco took it that he was forgiven, in the way that it was possible to be forgiven by the Snape heir, and so he strided in on the myth. Knowing this was going to be difficult to put.

“The cult who’ve been attacking recently are the Khaeodrics. They founded their beliefs upon the legend millennia old. That of Khaeod, the lord of darkness. By our understanding he is not a god. He is simply in a pane of existence far above humans. Some would call that godlike, and indeed they do. They worship him, hoping to be rewarded by doing their duty. Servicing their dark lord is all they live for. And the legend is what they seek to fulfil.

The legend which is far older than can be traced back, talks of Khaeod gathering power from our world to fuel his self. Once he had enough he imprisoned the fates. He messed with destiny as is said and created his own child. The Cwendendia, to be goddess queen of darkness. She would literally be a child of the gods, a demigoddess. And through her he wanted to channel into this strata of reality. To bring his dream upon the world we know. Of chaos and darkness.

So basically the Khaeodrics live to make this real. They won’t stop at anything. The recent attacks were their new leaders demonstrations of influence. They have centres placed all over. In every single country. We can’t be too careful when dealing with them. They punish harshly, of even their own. Anyone caught won’t be dealt with nicely.”

He stopped for breath, hoping he’d not have to give details again. He looked to Severus for approval.

Snape nodded slightly and moved to take his position at the table finally.

“Now Mr. Potter. What can we do for you?”

##Harry##

He blurted it out almost not caring it was Snape he was talking to. He’d sat through all that impatient to get help. It was his chance.

“They have Hermione. I'm pretty sure they do. She was definitely taken. Kidnapped. There was d-k potion all over the room. But I don’t know where. You HAVE to help.”

##Snape##

Snape studied his former student. Aware that his eyes were near bulging out, his face muscles strained, vocal chords tensed. Awaiting a reply. Wanting him to help somehow.

“Understand our resources are stretched. And you cannot be sure I'm sure that it was them. Never the less if it is we can only help is we know why she was taken.”

Harry appeared frantic. He clutched onto Elianne’s shoulder, ready to black out in a panic

*Why can’t I do anything? Why can’t they? Where is she? There’s no way out of this is there. She’s gone*

Dido, who’d ridden, flown and sat silently through all of it, suddenly spoke up boldly.

“Cassy said something in her trance. After we saw the angel. She mentioned khaaeod. Just like Mr. Malfoy said. And she was talking about someone wanting a woman, a man. Maybe that has something to with it?”

##Draco##

Draco stared nervously at what the girl had said.

If it was true then it all made sense.

Cassandra was a seer. Snape had said she was, as a distant relative, an indirect Snape as it was.

And the appearance of an angel sounded all too like the tales he’d heard in those dark halls. Of the ones who came to put it right. To undo what his false lord meant for.

The leliods. Messengers of fortune.

They only thing was that it meant the legend wasn’t so. Instead it was exactly as his old associates had faith to trust in.

It was a prophecy.

And they must at least believe it had come to pass.

~~

I used to love the world

Til it went wrong

Used to love

The song of the morning

The smile on a stranger

The sweet dusks glow

Used to love

The way friends come and go

The way you just know

Somethings

Used to love

That phrase

That melody

That smell

The quote strong

The bellowing notes

The fresh cut grass

Used to love

Used to

Now love's gone

Replaced by memories

Wishes

Wants

Futile in every sense

Miserable

Like I ended

Now I have nothing

Not even repulsion

Not even the emptiness of hate

The world decays

People the same

All spiralling down

Forever moving

Never realising where

Just happy

That the ride doesn't stop

Now I have nothing

Not even repulsion

Not even the emptiness of hate

Nothing

The way things are going

I used to love myself

But I'm not far below

~

##Hermione##

She struggled against her bonds. Cursing that her imprisoners hadn’t been stupid enough to leave her near anything sharp edged.

The large doors opened up and a few soldiers of darkness entered. She recognised an individual among them.

May.

She hadn’t changed on bit in all the years. The one addition to her was a long thin scar tracing her jaw line to the chin.

A voice called from the door instructing Eliza to check on the guest as it was so politely put.

“My my, you are known by many names.”

Eliza strolled up to her rounding the back and tugging cruelly on the ropes. Forcing the chunks of rope into the skin of the arms.

“Yes indeed I am.” She countered.

Listing them on her fingers idly

“Elizabeth Grinshott firstly. An unfortunate legacy of my muggle mother. And then May Potter, not any better for the reputation I deserve. By far the best and the one that will always truly only be my correct one is that of my fathers beloved daughter. And therefore I cherish my given name of Eliza Riddle.”

Hermione gazed back at her in dismay.

“OH! (Gasp)! Are you shocked? I had to have a reason didn’t I, to betray my doomed husband and what better than blood.”

Eliza rounded her once more. Taking a short delight that she’d shut up the bratty witch who’d hated her.

“That’s right, you never believed Ronald McWeasley’s hypothesis. So who would suspect it? Mind you, that didn’t leave us on good terms anyhow.”

Hermione replied dryly. Her stare to her adversary caustic in every implication.

“As much as I hated you, it was never lack of trust.”

Eliza flipped the comment off casually. Like she’d been preparing for this moment for a grand duration of time.

“Yes. I know. Always to do with that boy, my spouse. Poor Harry James. Never stood a chance. Depended too much on others, couldn’t stand on his own two feet, needed me. Worst choice possible though.”

She looked away to the walls. Inspecting them with mock interest. Obviously waiting for Hermione’s meagre retort. Not quite expecting what she had to say.

“I think you’ll find he stands firmly on his feet these days.”

Elizas eyes flared up but she had no chance to speak. A young man entered the room, Thomas not far behind.

Known to Hermione as Voldemort but less notable now. Eyes dulled, a blackened red. He was cracked almost, possessing a withered body, wrinkled with age and greyed in time and trouble. He’d become all he’d hated.

The young man rode up to Hermione and untied her.

The manner of him made her think twice about trying anything. He was ruthless. He may have politely kissed her hand as a gentleman would but his soul seen through his orbits told another story. Of a man who was a beast. Who knew no limits. Whose grace served only one purpose.

She was grateful when he left her alone with the others. They were manageable. He, she hoped, would not be adorning her with his company again any time soon.

Even the company of Thomas riddle was more pleasing to her than Adeodatus’, as he had introduced himself.

Thomas too came astride her and announced himself, taking her hand to his lips.

She was revulsed at the sensation of her skin on his rough lips.

He saw it and bowed before her.

“I am sorry my lady. You bless me with your existence.”

Waving over in the bow like a snake would if it could perform that task.

“How are you even alive?”

He looked deep into her. Analysing her almost.

“My humble servant, Eliza. My family. She supported me through my bad time. After I was disembodied. She took my spirit on. Saved me from death til we found our friends here. Their power restored me as a person and in assistance of the cause.”

She coughed untactfully. Wishing he would step away.

“I was wrong after all that time. How I was stupid never to have seen it. Harry was never who I wanted. You were. You were what I would not defeat. Harry was protected by a fate. Unknowingly you spared him by the power within. Like I should have, he should have died. Ask yourself why he did not.”

She laughed at him. Unsure what he was implying but sure that it wasn’t true.

“Strange that he was spared when he should be dead. Is it not evidence of your powers, weak as they are now.”

He peered right up at her silhouette, pupils sparkling with trepidation.

You were never a witch, you were a Goddess.”

~

What did you do?

To deserve fates cruel hand

The movement of the suns mocking you

The stars twinkling in delight at suffering,

Things made right

What did you do?

Murder, rape, betrayal?

None of these

You did what saved millions

Yet by breaking one boys heart

You created a world where your destiny is

Exactly what it should be

The rain that falls on your parade

Is because this is a walk of shame

What did you do?

You forfeited what was not yours

You swapped love for happiness

And someone else's

Misery on you

You cracked it up

He's not the same

Nor are you

Both lives changed

From what you saw

And wanted

Desire for once left in the draw

And fate; it repaid you

Emotionally full

Empty in soul

Filled to brim though

With the tears of the years

That fell

What did you do?

Exactly what you had to

And no one knows

What you gave to save them

Only you know how much it meant

And just why it wasn't right

Despite it being what was needed

~

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

~

Chapter 26

“Climbing Up The Walls”

~~

What I was

I am not

I had a life

I forgot

Walking to eternity

Life only for me

Makes it pained

A scream at the silence

The frustration of the emptiness

Never filled

My veins lacking all I want

Terrified at my scorned existence

That all I do damns

All I want is in the past

Unredeemable

Gone, like a trembling hand

Dust fallen from it

Into the sands

Lost

~

##Hermione##

Hermione’s body hung limply in the chains attached to the ancient monument in the grand hall.

She rolled her eyes in frustration.

Bound up all night, they’d left her to sleep there. Though she had not found a moment to get any. She constantly averted her eyes from the spectacle of Minrai, the temple priestess, whose figure was still flopped over the stone table.

Minrai's heart forever lain in the ominous cup in the tables middle. The ritual had fulfilled the purpose of these things made maybe millennia ago.

Hermione remembered the events of the night before. For a few brief seconds she had thought the hallucinating Minrai might attack her with the swift hook of the ornate dagger.

But when the woman had struck at her own heart she showed the true nature of such a follower of the dark god. Dying wishes whispered out, the completion of her part in the spell, seemingly ecstatic at her gift to Him.

Hermione had to remind herself as the blood washed over her from the splash that it was not hers gratefully.

From then not a wink could be slept, no rest at all.

The pain of the enchantment had subsided hours after the gleeful supporters had left her.

Ever since she’d felt a strange feeling. A numbness overall, the pain had overlapped into now. But there was a sense. Subtle. A tingling in her bones. Of an energy she lacked to describe. Something that she wished would not be true because right now the truth of it would be too much to bear, too much power ensnaring her…. Too much to set upon the world.

+++++

##Harry##

He pulled his hand through his rough hair that had begun to loosen itself from its leather bound.

They’d been up all night, teams around attacking the places.

Hermione however was still out there. They hoped.

Harry hoped.

##Draco##

Draco leaned over to look in through the door, seeing a roughened Harry sleeping best he could. The man’s face greyed in sincere worry for his friend.

Draco though being the man he was, subject to speculation, couldn’t help but wonder whether that concern potter showed was more than friendly. If it was potter did not let on. Given the close relationship between the trio it was understandable that Harry would be that worried, Ron certainly was. He’d been out on the last 10 raids without any sleep. Said he couldn’t bear to when she was in danger.

But Mafloy’s brain worked overtime calculating the chances of him being right.

And wondering why it was that Potter was alive.

If it had anything to do with the truth he feared.

+++++

##Hermione##

They’d tied her up good and strong to it. She yanked futilely at her shackles. Not caring the wounds the action inflicted on her already sore wrists. Pain wasn’t much to her anymore.

She just wanted to be rid of this. Free from vindication. From their control. Their wishes with what to do with her. It didn’t really matter if what they said was right, she wanted out from them anyway.

She wanted away from this torturous life they imposed suddenly.

All her life she’d been controlled in various ways. But never as greatly as this, not since…

The future had always been a consideration.

When you turned the waves of time, whichever way it was, you turned it on yourself.

///Hermione’s flashback///just after graduation, year 7

He knew.

The old fogey had known all along. Like he could see everything.

And he’d called her up like the kind grandfather he intended to be to tell her what it was she must do.

He’d told her to stop.

And he’d been right every step of the way.

Watching every pace.

Waiting gently for the strides to fall into the time.

Dumbledore.

She’d cried.

When it had happened all she wanted to do was fall into the arms of the man she loved and explain it all, ask for forgiveness. Cry to fate that it had made it this way.

She’d been going to tell Harry everything. Right to how the situation they were in had come about.

From the very fateful day she’d foolishly used the time turner to go even further into the future.

A decision that had haunted her greatly in many ways.

Something that she’d never been sure of, whether it was good or bad.

If she hadn’t would they be here today, or in three years?

She’d not know now.

The future had almost come true, like a prophecy. In the vein of the doomed Cassandra of Greek mythology, her visions ignored.

Instead she’d seen it and she’d said it would never be.

And it had come true. Every word, in every kiss. Just as if she lived it all once more. Twice, a sense of dejavu. Of what was going wrong.

And Dumbledore had told her. No more.

For the sake of the world.

“No more. You understand why I recognize.”

….it’s the way it has to be…

And she’d cried.

Wanting to smash that time turner.

Hating herself, her dream that it wouldn’t be this. That it wouldn’t at least be this way.

And Harry’s words had cut her off.

“Why do you do this to me? Why, do you despise me or just yourself for loving me when you shouldn’t?”

He’d hit it on the nail, pushing it deeper into her heart.

Exactly that.

She shouldn’t love him but love does funny things…

She hadn’t said anything. Can’t tip the balance, can’t play with the world.

She’d stared back only eyes pleading it wasn’t really so.

And he’d turned telling her he’d pretend he didn’t feel, that he’d not embarrass her any more. That he’d never tell a soul.

He couldn’t. She broke them both beyond recognition. What it was in her that loved was ripped with self-abhorrence, that she had caused what wreaked her havoc.

She couldn’t even have the extravagance of sympathy. That was reserved for him, for what she’d done to him was far worse than to herself.

He never looked at her the same again. The congratulations at the graduation not merely half-hearted, vacant to recognition. Staring straight past her, leaving only a name and an obligatory action.

She’d cried more that night than any her entire life.

Who would have realised that words could hurt so much.

That what you did year before could mess up what you sought, so entirely.

It all rested on her and the spell unheard, the simple turns of the piece of glass that ruined the rest of her life.

She buried her head in the cushion. Trying not to sob quite as loudly to wake any of them up from their peaceful slumber.

////end flashback////

~

Killing myself virtually

I’ve taken more than I,

Along with me

Bringing something bespoken

Too, into my deep

Taking on what I spurn

To be what I am not

To be what is not meant for me

Desperately thinking

It could have been,…

But it was not

Humming to a tune

I do not know of

From wherever it was

We went

In that place

Where life came true

And the darkness forgot

The power fear begets

There is different

We went our different ways

Out to the fields unlike,

Where nightmares didn’t come true

Ours did, as they were said to

As our doubts moulded them to be

Forgetting happiness

The roots of the tree,

Of what could be

~

##Hermione##

Adeodatus stalked into the room, doors flung wide open.

Gracing her with a bow.

Disgracing her with himself.

She sneered at him, whilst he walked up to her in strides flipping the priestess’ body from the table and presenting himself on it instead.

He crouched on the round stone meeting her level. Not flinching at the dried crimson engraved to its surface.

“How is the princess today?” he embellished on her mordantly “enjoying your last moments on this earth.”

He tilted her chin in his advances, despite her resistance to his hands.

He moved her head side to side, approving of her pretty paleness and the dark red spots decorating her face.

“You do know my dear that you lack life from now on. He will so soon be in control of you. Of us all. But then you never really had any choices to make. Abandoning your darling lad those years ago..”

Just again it was as if he knew her past, as Dumbledore had seen all she was.

Like everyone else had there own secret pensive of her life. Viewing all the surreptitious times of yore.

Or maybe it was simply her face mirrored what she’d been through. That looking at her was that pensive. Either way he knew what it was that cracked her up.

She attempted to lash out at him from her chains. Tugging at them but barely touching his figure.

“You never could get what you wanted Hermione. That was your fate. Everything leading up to this day. Or even that fate that was worse than this. At least with Khaeos you will have power.”

Power. Once she’d thought she’d had. They’d ever told her she was the best witch in the school. Maybe even that was to do with this, the tainting of her, lead to her feinting of life. It was never true to say she knew what to do, that she was in control. But it hurt to admit that. The memories couldn’t repeat that it was a lie. She couldn’t take that.

“But even with him, having the most you’ll ever have, you’ll still be meaningless, hapless soul that crossed his path. Hermione. The girl, who never grew up, never had a life. Everyone lived it for her.” He laughed hollowly.

She broke.

Screaming more ferociously at him than ever before.

“I didn’t want her life to be this. I was going to grow up and be a success and have happiness. You don’t have a right to mess with me. You don’t have life like this, don’t judge mine. You live under Him and His judgement. I am not to be subjected to yours. You don’t deny me my right. I WILL BE FREE!”

She lashed out at the rock she was bound to, the crevasses widening and the anchors crumbling. The chains broke from the slab instantly.

Feeling bloody rushing through her, boiling in its corridors. Rage overcame her and as she lost every ounce of her last control she saw Adeodatus with fear in his eyes.

There was only one thing such a beast was capable of fearing. Its Master.

~

All through me

It runs

Right down to the bone

The touch it is

The forceful way

Unavoidable, control forgotten

Took from me

The cold overcomes

Something to be said is not

Can’t tell; lips frozen in mid air

Something lingers in this place

Which is but should not be

The past still lost

And left for dead

And words lacking force

Unheard to us

The thought with myself

Can’t think it

Is too much like now

Reverberates in my anger

Taking what it finds

Begging for life

No;

It is dead

Turn my head and gather all my strength

To leave this room

Forgive the day

Forget what happened

Let it remain but only here

And abandon it

Hoping it will cease

And that life will go on

~~

Chapter 27

“Dichotomy of Nature”

~

##Hermione##

She reads the mind of all the people passing by, wishing she had their lives. Any one of them, a little less tortured than her own existence. Just a bit.

And every bit was meaningful, when each step hurts and when each step brings you closer to the source of pain. That destiny, that can't be created.

The hurt necessarily, inevitable, most of all unstoppable.

For her there was terror that lurked in the corner of the room, her own shadow, a creature.

Nothing left that was hers, only hers. She barely belonged to herself. Thoughts were that refuge.

And she could have theirs. Their many ugly thoughts, the dreadful ones, the dreams of power and chaos.

Any day now she'd crack at one of them.

Death wasn't luxurious, the dark not mysterious. It was stark and plain, the blood spilled stank, its colour monochrome in comparison to the scent.

They all thought these thoughts, some wanted them. They thought.

If they knew truth they wouldn't. They’d run, flee from her, for her very presence was these things in micro.

Waiting to become, was her job. The hated fate that awaited for the day her face would change. Deep to a snarl, a grasp, the dutiful servant of the secretly desired yet despised in human nature.

All she could do was watch.

~~

Has it always been feeling as if

This world is done

Nothing more to do

Nothing left

All is over

Notes fading away

Into deafness

Into dumbness

I cannot say

It’s the way I sense it

Nothing in the right place

Nothing with grace anymore

Colour drained

Grey and more gray

A scale of deceit

Of loving lost in memories

From when life was different

I cannot say

What point it changed at

Or how this came about

Only that today is dark

And I am totally, utterly at the mercy of death himself

Because I'm dead inside

Waiting only for the body to follow me

To my filling grave

Shallowly laid

In dirt and earth

Tainted in some idea of

What could be

If only I wasn't Me

~

+++++

##Harry##

Ron, the ginger leader of the regiment, forced the man down to his knees infront of the group. Sneering at him but smiling never the less for what he represented.

Snape followed behind, geared up in the blue phosphoresce of his magical shield, which unlike the others had not worn off.

He gruffly pulled him forward, the man scuffling fast to catch up and reduce the pain upon his shoulders.

Severus commanded Harry’s attention instantly.

“Thought you might like to know.” The sallow adult calmly spoke, with only a hint of the voice making the sound of the bitter coolness inherent to the character.

Ron rushed forward eagerly explaining what they’d found.

Like he was clinging onto the hope the rogue devotee provided them with.

That Hermione would be nearer for what he could tell them.

“This one came back with us. He was in the Paris headquarters, where malfoy used to spy might I add.” He leered towards the man virtually hidden from view, seated beyond Harry’s figure.

Once again the pallid professor joined the stream of conversation, imparting an important detail Ron had neglected to mention.

“He identified it as the current headquarters.”

Snape stopped speaking momentarily. Taking his time to divulge the information.

“He told us about Hermione after a dose of veritaseum. It may interest you what he said”

Ron interrupted once more, this time hushly telling of the strangeness they’d encountered.

“They were all dead scared when we got there. He was shaking.” Ron pointed a thumb over his shoulder to the black robed boy, who could not have been any more than eighteen.

Snape belittled the behaviour of the lad smiling maliciously at him, albeit sceptically at the affair. Particularly what he was about to confess.

“He claimed their goddess has escaped”

Harry looked at him in disbelief.

*What did this mean?*

Snape laughed at the surprise on his former students face, obviously scorning it. He would have thought potter would have more sense than that.

He sarcastically replied to Harry’s dismay “What? Do you really think he is right? He is very certainly telling the truth,…as he believes it to be. But reality is very different Mr. Potter.”

+++++

##Draco##

Behind the shadow of Harry, a face paled at the mention.

Draco stood up, staring abysmally at Snape’s sardonic face.

None of them knew.

How could they? He asked himself.

He was the only one who could set the matter straight. The only hope of settling the future into one where maybe they had a chance.

So he spoke up, countering Snape’s remark directly. Unafraid of what he might say in return. This wasn’t school anymore after all and the consequences nowadays were far higher.

He started of, his voice wavering unnaturally with uneasiness.

“Well actually….”

+++++

##Hermione##

I can see through his eyes. My “fathers” eyes.

She didn’t know quite how to explain that. She wasn’t adopted, She knew she wasn’t. and the cult had never said she had to be.

It was intervention. Her soul divinely made. But not made into a nicety.

Being the daughter of a god wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

He wanted the power badly. She felt it from within. A hate creeping into her, for her.

Willing her to cease control. He wanted one thing singly. For her to rule over the world in suffering. As him.

He was worse than Voldemort ever was. He was never made with intentions of doing good even remotely. He was the god of evil basically. Not knowing evil except for his pleasure, at least knowing no other than it for that means.

And she knew this all because she could be him. look out on the world like he did.

Look once and everything is fine, slightly brutal as humans are. Look twice and its no revelation as to what he is.

There is burnt landscape, chaos in the air. The fear of reality. Murder, rape, hate .The smell of rancid burning flesh, of blood running free, the rank decrepit earth that he wants.

And she knows it. Abhors it. Loathes herself for ending up his instrument.

Adeodatus died the loyal servant. Slaughtered in the temple.

And Khaeod loved every minute of it.

Living it through her.

Her only surveilling from above, horrified at being an overseer to it all. Powerless.

For the night.

She vowed he would never have her again.

She turned away into the darkness of the alley, away from the people and the strength that empowered the spirit possessing her depths.

Gone from the emotions that fuelled Him and drained her.

+++++

##Cassandra##

A raven clawed the skull, perched over the sight. Watching intently the crystalline eyes, of the figure examining the wasteland afore.

The flurry of the woman rushing past. Anxious to escape.

The blood dripping into rivers.

Pooling on the floor languidly.

Screams of a terrified fear.

The eyes dart, the woman scatters away.

Snitches of scenes.

A golden sword.

Pictures tainted black as she fly’s beyond their reach.

He’s after her.

It never changed.

His black and white view. Colourless, dull, an emotionless horror. He only wanted her. The man who she knew was not a man, He was undescribable. Not made for the words she used, nor any she could learn.

The screams, fleeing by foot, the girl as she is ever eager to get away. He would not leave his grasp, for he held her in his hand metaphorically. Every way she saw that he appeared. Miraculously He emerged in every corner.

The mind rushed in panic. She couldn’t get away, they couldn’t get away.

One last strangled shriek as He lashed out at them, pain engulfing her heart.

Reality twirling down back to normality.

She clasped up from the bathroom floor in fright.

Cassandra’s thoughts merged with those of the stranger in her dreams. She rasped at the panic and automatically her arm rose to attend the cuts to her arteries that were nonexistent on her body.

The dreams had started again.

Of the woman she did not know, nor knew who she was.

That could not escape her nightmare; that only Cassy could awake from.

She felt the all too real alarm in the woman; she’d known it like this for ages.

They’d stopped for a while back, now they started off more ghastly than previously.

She felt almost guilty at not being able to help as the woman pleaded mentally for aid.

But in the dream there was no room for reason. Cassy could do nothing but experience it.

Sensing the pain, as only half that that ripped the woman’s soul. And she endured badly for it, despite that the dreams forego-ed most of it.

She’d always thought of the figure as more of a girl though. She wasn’t sure why, it was as if that was what she was inside. Being forced to grow up faster than was possible, never left to naturally develop. Lost as it was in a hellish territory.

She splashed the water up to her face, attempting to wake up and hoping she could forget it maybe soon. But her tears fell without directly in shock at the horrors seen. She never felt it all lightly. As she brought up the towel to dry her face from the cold water she noticed a kindly woman in her 30’s standing watching her.

The woman moved to beside her, hand supporting her on the back.

“You want to talk about it?”

+++++

##Harry##

He’d stormed out of the room. Oblivious to or ignoring Draco’s advice.

He didn’t believe it. She wouldn’t do anything.

Hermione wasn’t like that.

She was strong. Even if it were true she’d battle it out.

Draco’d shouted out as he’d left, accusing him of overlooking the pragmatics. Said he was looking to the past, to what he wanted.

That wasn’t true.

He did want her to be fine but he wasn’t being unrealistic.

He was going to find her.

He knew there were only a few places she could hide, places he knew he’d find.

+++++

##Cassandra##

She’d taken the woman up on her offer.

Spilling out all the troubled details of her gift and her dreams.

She felt relieved to have told someone the story, it felt like an epic stored up in her head, stressing away at her mind. Boring her down to a mindless state she hated.

“Tell me again what you saw afterwards, like you said about remembering extra bits of it. Maybe one of those is important”

She snuggled closer to her reassuring warmth and began going on about the insignificant sections she now remembered seeing in the confusion of her slumber.

She looked up to the caring woman as she spoke of the nightmare, smiling at the Orderly she’d known for barely an hour or two.

She could almost believe it was her mother comforting her, if not for the eyes. Her mothers were blue, the only thing she really knew of her. Blue, not much like the lavender colour of the young woman’s blissly orbs.

+++++

##Harry##

He walked into the alley, treading carefully. Footsteps falling dumb on the cobblestones.

He glanced around at the hushed stone room, off and separated from the entrance near Knockturn. Far enough away from the main parade to be secluded.

He flashed around at a noise, seeing a whip of robe. Running after the sighting he clambered through the fallen woodwork of the abandoned section between the shops.

He caught up with her, coming to a halt at the scene in front. He’d been lucky in one sense; she’d caught her foot over a beam and tripped onto her back.

She lay there peering up at him, fearfully.

He stood confused at her reaction.

He offered his hand forward to help her get up.

His memory flashed back to Hogwarts, the day she’d fell into the lake. Today her face was not angry; instead it was laced with an apprehension.

Still she took his hand, and he strained his muscle to lift her up almost entirely by his own effort.

She did not let go of his hand.

He felt through it a racing pulse. Matched only by his darting hub as he gathered his eyes from her beauty.

Her hair was glorious coloured, he could see in it specks of a gold glimmer now that the cloak had fallen back. And reds intermingled with the brown, facing strands of a darker colour likened to a subtle black. Her eyes too shone out despite the fear in them. All of it harmonizing with the brilliance he felt in her presence.

She was different.

But he saw nothing there that was detrimental.

Why should she be afraid? The order could shelter her from the Khaeodrics.

There was no reason for her trepidation.

He leaned over to take her into a friendly hug, one that he preciously desired to soothe both of them. He’d whisper in her ear comfortingly that it would be ok and then they’d go home, or as home would be for now at the compound temporarily.

##Hermione##

As he leant in her mind dissolved. Restraint lapsed and lust overrode the carefully placed blocks that had lasted decades from the real instruction. The reasons no longer mattered. And she no longer cared in the instant, will submitted to the long denied aspiration. The gap between the two sets of mouths vanished, folding into a sweetness of obedience to the prevailing passions.

And she withdrew after a simple minute. Retreated to see the confusion on his delicate face, poised for pain at her rejection.

She wished it hadn’t happened. It hadn’t been her. It had been the will of Khaeos forcing her to do, as her true nature required her to do. He was tempting her with what he could give.

And she lashed out at herself scratching at her arms in resentment that he could do that with her. Play little games with her life, what she had left. What she’d had in the first place, or not in this case.

Harry looked back to her bizarre behaviour in bewilderment.

She’d done it again.

Just as if she’d taken them right back to the beginning.

The timing for it, the motives where all wrong but how could she explain to him what it was in her that had made this situation?

She walked up to him, caressing his cheek with her hand and mourning in her eyes the fate she had.

She turned away from him as quickly as she could, walking on steadily advancing away, reading to run if he followed.

She whished around at a further sound, they had a visitor in the clearing.

And she took the opportunity to flee as Harry watched the silent figure standing off from his position. Neither pair paying any attention to their intended target.

And as the last look back on the landscape was taken by Hermione, before she fled completely; she saw watching from the other door a group of figures looking intently to the two estranged family members. At the front of this was Elianne gazing frightfully upon both her parents together.

~

Join me on my parade

I saved a space for you

Tagging along

To the joyless song

Join me on my day

To walk away from all I adored

Join me

It’s the last time today;

That you can say you saw me

Join me now or never more

Today I go forth

To a whiter world

Chilled to touch

On to much more than we had

Yet not what I had asked for

Replacing the life I never wanted

With one even more banal

The jewel not qualified

Riches loved but not allowed

Join me if you dare

This life was never fair,

Beware what else is to befall

The Courageous Victor

With no help, no net incase they fall

Sometimes you have to save yourself

~

Chapter 28

“Life Is Made Of Little Things”

~

I just feel like my wounds wont heal

My body pitted with scars and the marks still clear

After weeks of what should be …better

The red flesh, goes deep into me

Bruised genes that stick

With the lessons ingrained

Never to make the same again

For fear of more;

For fear

That is forever that lash across my heart

My head, always doubting what he said

Its my way, wanting

Its my life, wishing

Dreaming it away

Dreaming of better days

Fires warm not fierce

A coolness that does not pierce my reverie

A coolness not a chill touch

Something neutral, unnerved

That cannot kill my senses

That cannot be bad

However wrong or unintentionally

Dreamt of love

Wanted a simple version of perfection

Wished the bad blood behind me, away

From what was today

Needed other than misery

Needed freedom

Space to breathe

Finally

~

##Elianne##

It seemed like life didn’t give any breaks. Elianne mused as she watched the cloaked figure flee the doorway, and the two figures affront of her and her friends.

Not to her, not to anyone.

She looked up from her momentary thoughts.

Hermione was gone from the glimpse she had caught before.

Now only the other two were left in the middle of the abandoned area.

Her mother and father still stood at a Mexican standoff. Neither moving. Neither doing anything.

Her mother gripping wand tightly.

Fear in her mothers eyes.

*What else did she expect?* Elianne said spitefully to herself.

She left us. She left me.

##Eliza##

One of the secrets of life is to make stepping-stones out of stumbling blocks.

She’d heard that somewhere.

And now she looked at what all the advice had made.

The choice you made was never the right one.

She had abandoned her family for further family.

Now all the past confronted her, in the shape of her former husband and the girl who looked at her with hate in her eyes. Elianne, her daughter, hating with a vengeance her own mother. It seemed wrong…

Much like all Eliza’s life had turned out, like it had been for her.

But the past was done.

The past added up to what she was, why she was in this place right at this moment.

All determined by others, by events out of her control.

She just needed a grab at the future. That was all she could wish to change.

##Harry##

Harry sneered at May’s form. Looking at her today he saw what he had missed all the years before. Her raven hair flew around her face whipping her features, lips thin and mouth carved tight. She curled at the corners unpleasantly.

His betrayer facing him. He was speechless.

*What do you say to the person who caused your death for all extensive purposes?

What do you say to the person who condemned all those you loved? Who did the worst possible actions imaginable.*

But she was just like her father, as Draco had explained to him, her name not May but Eliza. Somehow a much sharper description for her, more fitting to what she was.

Something the man, which Harry had known once as his mortal enemy, had left out whilst explaining the situation infront of all. Luckily Draco had had the commonsense not to talk of Eliza’s heritage whilst Elianne was present. It seemed that the Riddle’s weren’t figured of much importance in this whole thing.

Maybe not to the Order of Charadrius, but to him it was monstrous.

It was more than ironic that he’d married the prodigy of his adversary, further that his daughter’s grandfather was responsible for the murder of her other grandparents.

Spiteful that Elianne should have the greatest evil in her, that she should feel shame for doing nothing to noone.

##Cassandra##

A group including the girls, Snape and few other adults filed into the small area. Walking to surround the two at a distance.

Cassy saw Snape’s eyes dart across them and she silently cursed herself for being so gullible. She like almost everyone else did not know who the woman really was, but she knew what she had told the previously ginger haired female, had endangered Harry and possibly them all.

She turned to El to see her reactions to her father and the woman’s clash.

And in Elianne’s calm blank face she found a hurt deeply hidden. Tears unbroken in the eyes.

At that moment Harry shouted out at the woman.

“What did you do it for other than the obvious reasons? How could you leave her? Not me but your own flesh. If families so important then why leave her? She was really truly family yet you did the same to her.”

Eliza seemed to fear him, she stepped back, wary too of an orderly nearby.

In a short whisper she said back “Family look out for each other. She was better off there.”

“You left her to die. How could that be better?”

She lurched forward, desperate to explain. A pained look on her face but still not wishing to get too close to him.

*Why couldn’t he see why it was? Why she had to do all of it that way*

She spoke louder, wanting him to understand

“Would you have preferred the alternative? With dear grandpa in the scene. Would you? Do you not think I thought about it, about why it had to be done. It was the only thing I could choose on. And I had to do what I did.”

Snape motioned to one of the standerby’s.

Eliza preoccupied with Harry, for a second did not see it coming.

The shining handcuffs had enough time to be latched over one hand before she lashed out at the wizard and a whole battle broke out.

They all pointed their wands deflecting her curses as she tried to struggle free from the first wizards hold, the only one attached to the magical handcuffs.

If they could get her she could not escape. Til then all she needed to do was get away from the poor sap who held them tightly.

She knocked him back with force, his break weakened as he slumped to the floor.

But he did not let go and she was dragged down with him.

In the few minutes after that she was enclosed. Wand thrown across the floor with a powerful disarming spell. Wizards on all sides.

##Harry##

Harry watching it silently from behind. Elianne at his side.

“Take her away” Snape fired the order to the group “All of you.”

He caught the arm of Gregory as he passed with them

“Inform the M.O.M. I believe Nephiram has plenty of places free for witches like her. Make a recommendation. I'm sure they’ll love to have Voldemort’s daughter there.”

Harry flinched at Snape’s comment, sensing Elianne’s displeasure.

*Nobody liked Voldemorts daughter. Why should Elianne think she’s safe as Voldemorts granddaughter? Maybe once removed wasn’t enough for them. Or for Elianne.*

He angled his arm to cuddle his daughter, as he watched her mother disappear from view. Taken no doubt by the wizards to the fearful prison, a site which was second only in terror to Azkhaban.

People didn’t come out of Nephiram.

+++++

~

Don’t you do anything my friend

Don't even try to smile in my direction

It’s an infection of obsession

Life ain't enough

It's tough and I'm going down to the limits

Past the no go zone, into space

Into whatever it takes

To get that stuff that makes it

The thrill is no good unless

You get that chill down your spine

In your head

Like you are dead for a second

Isn't worth a cent without that feeling

That we all need, the air we breathe

Taken away

Despairing for, preparing for

Nothing

We look to a place with no one

With our brains gone numb

With our minds in drive

Far too alive to care

Only want to dare

To do all the things

That nightmares make

Want desire, want lust, want power

Fuck it up; don't need trust

There, there is deceit

And lies

And all that we despise

Yet we love it

So far in we cant see

It’s the object of idolatry

It’s the secret fire

We worship (in the flame)

The eternal death of each of us

Personality gone

Just someone; with some thing that they want

Greedy little man scuttling along in the gutter

All along it was us

Everyone was wrong

It’s all there is to us

Every one of those things we deny

We put on the list of hated

Well here they are; belated

In the fierce bonds we created

To bind them from us

Only mixing them more to us

Denial sending them deeper within

To rebirth a hunger

For our frailty

~

##Hermione##

It wasn’t she was scared of the world. She scared herself with herself. Or more accurately with what resided in her. Darkness residing. Presiding over her, over what it willed her to do. Brain split between his voices and her own thoughts. With lines blurring quickly as he took hold.

Which was why when she willed to be anywhere but near Harry she had turned up in a place she really preferred not to.

The desperate apparration had been subverted and Khaeos had directed her to the exact opposite of where she wished to be, other than near Harry.

The new HQ of the Khaeodrics.

Hosted politely by Thomas riddle.

And secured and armed to the teeth with protection.

Each of them carried an amulet, with one of the symbols that she remembered from the ascension.

She could only summise that they stopped her from hurting them and added to suppressing her too.

Because she feebly willed her body to move but words came out of her mouth she could only hear as coarse and dry, a crackling.

It was the god who had sent her here, who kept her here.

She no longer had control.

Life had turned into a vaguely familiar dream, one where you can’t do a thing.

No even the littlest thing, that could change even one person’s world.

Trapped to a fiend, living in hell.

With nothing to be done about it.

She couldn’t lay a finger on any of them whatsoever even if she could escape Khaoes’s control.

Nothing could be done.

Short of a rescue party, from the people she’d warned away.

Looked like things weren’t going very well for the world today.

+++++

##Harry##

Harry sat back in the cushy chair of the living room of the cottage.

Elianne sat over from him in the open kitchen, with her friends. they’d found a board game that mildly amused them. The wizardborns at least had never played it and were getting quite excited.

It was only Elianne who remained quiet and composed at the table, as all her companions squealed in a delight.

If they had known what had just happened maybe they would have acted differently.

But Elianne had not wanted that evidently. She had at no point sat down to explain that woman was her mother. Maybe that was because it was hard to comprehend, understand or believe even.

Maybe it was because she didn’t want to reveal to them the horrors of what it all meant. As he’d had to explain to her himself when they had first returned home.

Elianne now knew her mothers true nature.

And in part what she was made of.

A family mystery that noone would have liked to expose. Hardly surprising she’d not taken it too well.

*And how had he taken it?*

He was angry. That she’d really been his enemy, that it was lies and deceit. Hiding from him, leaving her daughter. And in the utmost she’d had the audacity to come back into the picture as a crazed psychotic member of a cult. Didn’t matter she didn’t believe in it like all the other followers. She’d still done what she’d done. Helped capture Hermione, the woman who’d occupied Eliza’s own responsibility.

She’d kept on coming back to damn them more and more.

He balled up a fist in rage.

Fearing he’d punch through one of the walls if he didn’t do something, he bundled his hands into his pockets.

As he sat there he noticed quickly that they weren’t empty.

Despite the fact he’d not put anything in them.

He pulled out a crumpled note.

In a script he immediately recognised.

Harry

Don’t follow me. Leave me be.

I know what’s happening to me, something I feel you can’t comprehend.

I want things to work out ok but I can’t promise you’ll be safe if you stay with me.

That’s why you MUST stay away. ALL of you, including the Order of Charadrius.

No one is safe near me. It’s not worth the risk of what could happen.

I need help, yes. But you are not the one who can give me it. I'm not sure there is anyone who can.

Just don’t doom yourself because of me. I’ll either be fine or it won’t matter anymore.

Whichever way it is vital you don’t intervene.

I say this because I care. Its for the best.

-x-

Hermione

He read the message, not surprised at her sentiments.

Seeing her like that. Wanting to help.

She was never powerless

And the kiss

Whatever it was they shared in that.

It meant something even though she had taken it back.

People never do things they didn’t want to do, sometimes things they didn’t mean to but what you wanted you usually did spiting one’s own judgement.

And the contrast of the events.

Of Eliza to Hermione.

He loved her.

It was so clear now.

He’d always loved Hermione.

The years before he’d convinced himself were only infatuation.

A stupid unavoidable mistake of the hormones as he’d rationalised.

Yet that had never been it.

He’d never stopped loving her.

He’d just ceased to remind himself of the fact.

And look what it had got him.

She wanted nothing to do with him now, for whatever it was that was happening to her, she was afraid of.

Scared of the world, into hiding.

To a place he would not find her in.

~

Every time you fell

He was there to pull you up

Hand outreached

Toward the girl called me

Picking the bits back up to life

And all you gave

Each time, every day

Was a slap in the face

For indignation

That you needed to be saved

Tonight

You look out onto the high sky

Out the window, over the porch

Searching the landscape for his figure

Hoping dearly he'll come despite your orders

Stay away, I'm not for you, stay away from

The dangerous person I am

Because you always hurt him more than when life hurt you

Transferring pain into him

Never meaning it

Always regretting your words

Wishing actions had been different

In some subtle way

To give him

To tell him in a clue

That indeed you love him

And not just loved, but still

He isn't there

Tonight

You carry on sleepless

Wistfully wishing on the bright star

As if maybe you have a guardian angel

Who's forever unawoken

Who possibly might rise tonight

To bring him once

To you when you know

This time atleast

Exactly what to say, to do

But life hits you back

In the face, a loud slap

You don't deserve another chance

You cannot choose

Go on to what awaits

No use hanging around

For the world to befall you

You have to save yourself

As much as you have to save the world

You cannot choose

~

Chapter 29

“King of the Castle”

~

We are the chosen; for a life that lasts

No joy to tempt us; yet there is that fairness

Our hunger sated but pain created,

Out of all we are capable of

Today is the day

As everyday is this

All the days as one

Great battle

Evil wins on the lust that rides deep within

The power we took, takes us to a place

That can't escape the grasp held tight upon

Hands ripped, cuts lye in skin

The damage of its sin

Forced to us

Centuries drive past

Millennia fall away

We stay

To tell a tale

Of wishes fulfilled

Of dread

And the killed

Whatever we see

Shall live on

~

##Hermione##

She looked up to the scene, her spirit dragging as He moved her body across the floor. He walked without her and she lagged along behind feeling ever weaker for his control.

She cried inside at her misery.

*Why? Why me? Why such randomness to who ends up with a god in them?*

It took blood to start it.

Not such of a surprise when you know he’s not a nice guy, he’s a dark god after all. The baddest butch in the pack of whatever they were. And his sacrifice demanded blood, which she’d seen. The poor helpless priestess brainwashed to believe she’d be rewarded.

But how is a dark god going to reward his followers when his idea of what’s good is exactly the opposite of the norm. Either way they’d go to a hell made by him. Maybe the priestess’ reward was a little less suffering when she got there, having paid a price in pain in her death for Khaeos.

Hermione just didn’t know how it all worked. There weren’t any textbooks on what to do if you were possessed by a divine entity intent on bring down the world in fire and brimstone.

But her guess was this would only end in tears. More pain and more blood, maybe that was the only way. Another ritual perhaps, that the Khaeodrics knew of. There must’ve been some manuscript, something that told them what to do. If only she could get to it or in this situation, if only someone else could get to it for her.

+++++

~

For every lie has truth

And every thing can’t be

The same

That shame is in it

That pain is in it

And every one has it

Nothings false

It all could be

Every point possible

Every lie’s true somewhere

And if you know it all

How do you tell?

What’s true here

And what’s false there

~

##Harry##

I do not pretend to think everything will be perfectly fine. We can only wait, wait and see. –Severus.

Harry read the letter and threw it over onto the desk impatiently. For days they’d not known what was happening.

Once more the Order was searching for her, scouring the bases for the new headquarters.

Snape however brought no news of her with his third daily post. Still no news.

And nothing from her either.

Harry wondered if they could even help if they found her. If she was even in danger. She may just as well be in hiding from us all.

Yet to look for her anywhere else other than in the Khaeodrics possession was pointless. Unless she was with them they knew not where to search.

Harry too did not know where to go. The place he’d found her in he’d known of only because it was a place discovered by accident once in their school days. Where else was their, she would now only go where he could not find her because she simply did not wish to be found.

+++++

##Hermione##

The body moved to strike out at a young woman. Khaeos hit the unknown girl across the face harshly reprimanding her for her behaviour.

Hermione flinched at the sight of the blood on the tiles. It dripped in a trail as the female follower fled the room crying. Hermione suspected the girl cried more out of unhappiness at displeasing her great lord than at the pain of the split lip.

Nevertheless she hated His shows of power over the people before him.

She had too much pain inside, could not stand for more to be inflicted. She didn’t care whose pain it was just that it happened and needn’t but for His satisfaction.

It needed to end here and now.

Stopping today.

The horror stopping at Him.

Him stopping was all that was needed.

She didn’t care how.

Whatever it took.

She couldn’t get Him or them though. The only other target was obvious.

Tears.

There would be more….

She turned to look at Him in the mirror, out of her eyes she saw his picture. A malice in her eyes, her whole being corrupted with Him.

…but if tears would be what it took then that would have to be it.

*On my own head it will stop today; tonight.*

~

What do you do?

When you know

Letting go will end a life

Do you let the grip

Slip past your tentative fingers

Saying ever more sorry

To her fearful eyes

Do you take in her plea

Asking don't let me die

Hold on, hold on to me, please

Taking a hand in yours tightly

Knowing that your hand touches death

Is pulling you closer to it by the minute

Tugging at her, at you

With no release because you promised

Yours to give, hers to give; both being taken

What do you do?

A choice hard, heartbreaking

The difference love and life

Compared to death and darkness

To whichever you reach

Matters solely on one girl

Who anxiously awaits

The answer that decides her fate

Let go

Don't let go

Picking off the petals

Only you know what's to be

Fate left to you

The Norns task

Put upon you only

~

##Hermione##

He’d been drumming her down, beating her up inside, telling her she’s bad. Khaeos had said she was meant to be; destined to be this. So much had happened she’d been practically unsure what to believe.

It changed her life. Her destiny. Or did it. Was it her destiny to be this? Would she act like this if she were not a mother? Would she be willing to do this if she was someone who knew no pain? She knew love in all its forms. Unrequited, unconditional, for friend and for family.

Was that why her life had led to what she was about to do?

Even when she was determined to have a fate such as this she had a choice of what to do. She’d liked to have thought it was through the help of others that she’d become a good person but maybe it was from above. In subtle ways her life was changed over the years. Signs emerged that gave hope and strength. Not all ways to change things were direct.

*Perhaps one day they’ll forgive me. Maybe sometime he’ll forget me.* she thought as she watched over what was happening.

She’d figured it out.

Hermione knew they were protected. She could not harm Tom Riddle or any of the Khaeodrics.

And she could not control her body, could not get back what Khaeos had taken.

But he had not taken everything into Himself

She still had one commodity

And she knew exactly what to do with it.

She could stop this all with one sacrifice.

One thing she herself could do and then there would be no more threat to the world.

No longer any peril to Harry or Elianne.

If she could just concentrate long enough.

There was so much power in Him. Unguarded.

That could have been because it was really hers, built in to her by his design.

He meddled with her soul and now he’d feel the pain for making the mistake of thinking he was unbeatable because he’d left a backdoor open so to speak.

All she had to do to destroy him was in her. And in her reach.

She had will. Mentally even if no longer physically.

She knew he could sense her stirring now, her mind probing.

She heard the orders to Thomas.

The leader tries faithfully to help his master. She saw the ex-Voldemort cutting at her, hurting her. Making rips in the skin of the flesh.

Trying to weaken her.

Khaeos did not realise that it was too late. Now she knew there was no stopping her.

She found what she was looking for. The centre of it all. The orb of power within. The magic.

Hermione knew what she must do.

The sacrifice meant He could be gone.

Safe for all. And all she has to do is…

She reached out believing in it, knowing it was all it took to end it.

The crowd of followers stood round the figure of the girl hesitantly, they’d sensed a change. The god struggled internally with Hermione’s spirit. He was fighting her.

Some realised what it meant. Gods were meant to be infallible. And so whilst a few pivoted on their heels and ran with all their might from the scene, others faithfully stayed.

Over time they sensed it too. That it was not right. But they realised too late because a blinding light came from the pedestalled figure. It in a moment that lasted ages it grew to encompass Hermione’s body completely. And seen for a few further second was a beautiful sight impacted later by a massive magic explosion.

A rumble emanated from the site, heard from a mile away by the eloping Khaeodrics.

The magnificent monastery building lay in ruins. With only one room relatively intact - the main hall where the explosion had come from. Yet in it nothing was left except a darkness to it described as a chill atmosphere.

+++++

##Harry##

They all sat in the living room. Gathered after the evening meal.

All worried about Hermione.

Harry sat across from Cassandra. She sat watching him acutely. He’d wondered if she had a crush on him but it didn’t fit with what she was like.

He peered over his book and saw her with a strange look, stranger than he’d ever seen on anyone and rather familiar to a certain Professor he’d known.

He knew she was in vision.

He walked calmly over to her. Frantic inside his head to know what she was seeing

Elianne and the others all looked up too at his approach to Cassandra.

He knelt infront of her as the girls drew near.

“Cassy, what do you see?” he asked her.

She remained non-responsive.

Dido crawled forward to the side of Cassy and sat on the edge of the seat. She moved her hand and waved it infront of Cassandra. Cassy’s eyes did not blink at this.

Instead she spoke, as if on command.

“She is gone. Death is at deaths door. Khaos no more. There is no more. Cally’s girl she was, she was, and she is no more……”

The girls sat there confused whilst Harry retreated back to his chair.

He looked out of the window to the view, closing his eyes on it.

He knew what it meant. It was exactly what he didn’t want to hear.

She was gone. Hermione was gone. No more. He did not know how or why but she was dead. He sat down. Preparing to tell them.

The girls all still sat around Cassy as she awoke from the trance and still all were oblivious to the messages meaning. He’d have to tell them. But for a few minutes he sat there. Closed off from the world. Blanking out everything, wanting only for her not to fade from his mind now that she was only memories.

Epilogue

“The Stars Are Upside Down”

~

It would seem ok

If

You were only sleeping in a graceful coma

Pale in the face

Would be a little tolerable

If

You were at the end

Grasped in deaths hold: For eternity

Denied in mind, never to know the body

Yet you do not sleep eternally

You are not forever at the final point of life

For not even death can hold

Now you are decays

Rotting ever more away

Denied you in every sense

Not known by being

Very existence under defence

For now you are only memories

No body, not even cold and upturned

No body, all of you gone

And I could cope,

I could handle it

If

I could see you

Standing in death

Not mine; but not hidden either

Life would be better

If

You were near it; atleast

I can bear the silence

I can bear the cold

I can bear that there is no hold

No squeeze back of my hand

I can bear every denial of presence

Just Not That

That you are not any more

That you are obliterated from the world

From my world

And if

I cannot bear

The worst is

I may live

In this torture

Of not being

Of not being able to

Of waiting

Patiently

For that something else

That I cannot bring closer

For what I wish

~

#Harry##

Ten lonely people stood abroad the cold field.

All gathered around a small patch of ground and a neat stone placed before a young tree.

A vicar took a sermon for them, saying a few odd words about Hermione.

Harry stood back from them all, right infront of the grave. If you could call it that.

The wind swept his hair across his face and he did not bother to flick it from his eyes. He could barely see as it was with his watery eyes.

They’d been to the site where it had happened. Finally they’d found it. Too late for her to benefit. The only reason they’d found it was because the ministry had detected a giant explosion of the magical kind and an informant had tipped them off. The ministry hadn’t bothered with it, no muggles had been around at the time, no one to ask questions.

The order had transported them all there after the ministry had left. Harry had walked in the room where she’d been last. It looked mostly normal, only a few scorch marks compared to the rest of the place. All that was left was nothing to anyone else but to him he had seen it lying on the tiles. Her necklace of green tears, glittering in the remnants of the rubble.

Today he held it tight in his hand as he heard the words of the rector. Reverend Herrick was a family friend of the Grangers. Harry had not objected to this, he’d been grateful her parents had turned up at all with him present. Mrs Granger appeared to have forgotten all trouble with him at the news of her daughter’s death.

It was a shame her mothers forgiveness had come only in the wake of death. But it was a shame about a lot of things to do with Hermione that would never be again.

It was summer, a very cool day for it, early in the morning. The dew was fresh on the grass as he knew she’d always liked.

The service was a formality. There was nothing to bury, nothing left of her.

So they made a place for her. Somewhere to go to grieve.

Elianne mourned the loss of a mother.

In reality she’d lost two in fewer days. One to prison, practically a passing away and the other to death itself.

No more happy dreams.

Harry thought endlessly of what might have been, who he could have become if Hermione had been here. Of what would have happened if they’d had a happy ever after.

But without her now…fate changed again.

Not how it should have been, is the feeling he felt.

At the end of the speech they began to leave. Snape and Draco paid their respects briefly, departing quickly off to their work.

In the height of this the ministry finally had accepted measures needed to be taken to ensure safety. Draco was being put in charge of securing Hogwarts once more and Snape had his own mission to leave for. Harry didn’t care much to speculate but he thought perhaps it was to do with the knowledge that Thomas Riddle was alive. With all the pain Voldemort had caused Severus, he understood why that might be so important to tie the strings up. Snape already had Eliza holed away. Thomas would end things off nicely for him, settle the poor man’s conscience at long last.

Harry walked over to the tree, reading the plaque on the stone. Instead of the normal headstone he’d had a rock, her parents had seen to the engraving and the plaque by the tree.

Hermione Granger lies at rest

Forever remembered

She was always special

He doubted very much if she was at rest. They’d omitted she lies here, because of course she did not. They hadn’t asked too many questions, her parents had only accepted that it was so.

Special. Yes she was. And he cursed that it was that that had forsaken her to this.

Flowers dropped angrily on the grave.

Life was too unfair. Why did it have to be her?

If it had been Eliza no one would have missed her.

Yet life had picked Hermione for the fate.

That it was random made nothing better for him.

In fact it only infuriated him further that her death should have been so pointless and to no capable end.

He tore the necklace from his grasp and hung it over the branches of the Elder tree. The emeralds sparkled back at him. All his wishes could never have saved her. To take all your pain away & make you happy always – that was what it said on the back of the pendant. It hadn’t worked one bit. The drops of the green gem smiled at him, like sweet tears of sorrow.

He got up and strided away from the patch of earth. Running from it, he could stand it no longer for it imbued the essence of all she had been through.

It was too much for him to take in on top of his personal desolation. So he hurried far away, pushing the fear to the back of his heart and wishing it from his head.

Wanting with one total desire that he would never forget her. She deserved more than that but it was all he could hope to give if it was possible at all.

~

You can’t stop the world from turning

For the sunrise to become a sunset

And when dawn breaks

You know it’s happened finally

There is no going back

There is no timer to click

Like you can pause it at this point

Trying forever to remember

Because you know you'll be forgotten just like everyone else

Because the planet runs over everyday,

Travelling further away from this

And memory getting buried deeper

With no reminder of what was

And only the bright green light

And the tears left to do that

~~~~~~