Disclaimer : Everything, as usual, belongs to JKR, except Ysandra.
As it is my first fanfic, and as English is not my native tongue, please forgive all the weaknesses in the following chapter. I hope to improve by experience, so every advices, suggestions and remarks are very welcome. Please review !
1.1.1 The quest of Ysandra Mander
2 Prologue : Memories of a night long gone
****
"Home is where one starts from. As we grow older
The world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated
Of dead and living. Not the intense moment
Isolated, with no before and after,
But a lifetime burning in every moment
2.1 And not the lifetime of one man only
But of old stones that cannot be deciphered."
T. S. Eliot, "East Coker"
****
He was generally up early, round six, when the mists were hanging on Hogwarts's towers like flocks of cotton. However, this particular morning, he went up earlier and, shrouded in his black robe, proceeded to the owlery. The message he wanted to send could have waited for an hour or two, but he was sleepless anyway.
In the dim light of the day dawning, he could have been mistaken with one of the familiar ghosts, sliding down the stairs with only the faintest swish, hadn't he been so dark himself that he seemed to attract and absorb all the darkness around while he silently moved.
"Dark, that's the right term", thought seven year's Ravenclaw Ysandra, when she saw him pass right in front of her, his suspicious gaze lingering on her hidden form as if he was able to detect her presence, even under the invisibility cloak.
Dark and dreadful, especially when you know with perfect clarity that being discovered could cost your house at least fifty points, and could cost you.well, with Snape, who could say, but Ysandra's imaginative mind was well able to conceive what amount of really forbidding tasks, provided to keep her busy during an endless week end of detention, were ready to escape from the Potions Master's swift brain.
Ysandra had obtained the invisibility cloak from Potter, who was in fifth year, two days ago. She was dispensed from explaining her exact purpose, for Harry wasn't the kind of guy who would take advantage on someone asking for a service.
"As long as what you want to do cannot cause any harm to my house or yours, he said, that's all right with me."
"It's a purely personal matter, Ysandra answered reassuringly. No one will be involved, except myself."
These few words were enough for him to trust her. With the cloak, she knew she could roam unnoticed during the night and, maybe, find the key of the mystery that was her family's burden since generations.
Lost into her memories, Ysandra stayed crouched against the wall, trying hard to conceal the regular little haze of condensation caused by her breathing into her cupped hands. She shivered, but it was not caused by the cold autumnal dampness.
"How strange, she thought; A shiver seems to be the pavlovian response of my body to Snape's proximity, even when he doesn't glare at me with this black icy pupils of his."
She suddenly realised that the man passed by ten minutes ago, and that she had been paralysed since. Cautiously, she stood up against the wall, made some awkward movements to wake up her stiffened limbs, looked right and left, and finally made her way back to her house's entrance. Unfortunately, the tall distinguished framed gentleman who kept guard had apparently decided to go for a walk, so she sat down with a deep sigh on the bench near the painting, and began to wait for his return.
"Seems that I'm not alone to wander at night, said an ironic little voice inside her head. First, Snape, then the portrait.Well, maybe he's got a date with the friendly fat lady from Gryffindor."
Ysandra's imagination began to represent the tall gentleman wooing the severe lady with all the delicacy of medieval fin'amor, and she silently laughed to herself.
"Well, she thought, I have some time, for no one ever wakes up before six thirty in Ravenclaw. Intellectuals are such good sleepers."
Then, as she was finally calming down, turning and returning in her mind her unsuccessful attempts, this very night and the night before, to find answers to her problem amongst the dusty volumes of the Library's forbidden aisle, she quietly dozed off.
A sudden noise startled her ; then the question popped up out of nowhere.
"Would you be kind enough, Miss Mander, to let me know what you're doing outside of your dormitory at five thirty ?"
Completely awoken, Ysandra froze when she heard the unmistakable sneer underlying this slow and articulate drawl. Professor Severus Snape was standing near the bench, so close that she could have touched his robe, his eyes severely staring at hers.
While sitting down, the invisibility cloak had slipped from her head to her shoulders, giving her the astounding appearance of a head floating above the bench, but she was already half asleep, and too tired to notice.
"Well, someone else definitely did", she thought bitterly, and braced herself for what was to come. She looked up at Snape who opened his mouth again.
.And began to squeak.
****
Ysandra woke up : the wheels of the Hogwarts Express were squeaking continuously as the train stopped at his terminus. She briefly looked at her reflection in the window : pale, sleepy eyes, brown hair tousled. She certainly needed a pause before taking the boat to the School.
Decisively, she went out and, without a flicker of concern for her luggage, that would certainly be transferred to her new quarters in a very short time, she walked out of the station and headed to a nearby oak standing on top of the hill, at the exact place where her memories placed it and, as she had done ten years ago, before leaving Hogwarts, she sat on one of its prominent roots and let her thoughts wander from the past to the future at hand.
****
As it is my first fanfic, and as English is not my native tongue, please forgive all the weaknesses in the following chapter. I hope to improve by experience, so every advices, suggestions and remarks are very welcome. Please review !
1.1.1 The quest of Ysandra Mander
2 Prologue : Memories of a night long gone
****
"Home is where one starts from. As we grow older
The world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated
Of dead and living. Not the intense moment
Isolated, with no before and after,
But a lifetime burning in every moment
2.1 And not the lifetime of one man only
But of old stones that cannot be deciphered."
T. S. Eliot, "East Coker"
****
He was generally up early, round six, when the mists were hanging on Hogwarts's towers like flocks of cotton. However, this particular morning, he went up earlier and, shrouded in his black robe, proceeded to the owlery. The message he wanted to send could have waited for an hour or two, but he was sleepless anyway.
In the dim light of the day dawning, he could have been mistaken with one of the familiar ghosts, sliding down the stairs with only the faintest swish, hadn't he been so dark himself that he seemed to attract and absorb all the darkness around while he silently moved.
"Dark, that's the right term", thought seven year's Ravenclaw Ysandra, when she saw him pass right in front of her, his suspicious gaze lingering on her hidden form as if he was able to detect her presence, even under the invisibility cloak.
Dark and dreadful, especially when you know with perfect clarity that being discovered could cost your house at least fifty points, and could cost you.well, with Snape, who could say, but Ysandra's imaginative mind was well able to conceive what amount of really forbidding tasks, provided to keep her busy during an endless week end of detention, were ready to escape from the Potions Master's swift brain.
Ysandra had obtained the invisibility cloak from Potter, who was in fifth year, two days ago. She was dispensed from explaining her exact purpose, for Harry wasn't the kind of guy who would take advantage on someone asking for a service.
"As long as what you want to do cannot cause any harm to my house or yours, he said, that's all right with me."
"It's a purely personal matter, Ysandra answered reassuringly. No one will be involved, except myself."
These few words were enough for him to trust her. With the cloak, she knew she could roam unnoticed during the night and, maybe, find the key of the mystery that was her family's burden since generations.
Lost into her memories, Ysandra stayed crouched against the wall, trying hard to conceal the regular little haze of condensation caused by her breathing into her cupped hands. She shivered, but it was not caused by the cold autumnal dampness.
"How strange, she thought; A shiver seems to be the pavlovian response of my body to Snape's proximity, even when he doesn't glare at me with this black icy pupils of his."
She suddenly realised that the man passed by ten minutes ago, and that she had been paralysed since. Cautiously, she stood up against the wall, made some awkward movements to wake up her stiffened limbs, looked right and left, and finally made her way back to her house's entrance. Unfortunately, the tall distinguished framed gentleman who kept guard had apparently decided to go for a walk, so she sat down with a deep sigh on the bench near the painting, and began to wait for his return.
"Seems that I'm not alone to wander at night, said an ironic little voice inside her head. First, Snape, then the portrait.Well, maybe he's got a date with the friendly fat lady from Gryffindor."
Ysandra's imagination began to represent the tall gentleman wooing the severe lady with all the delicacy of medieval fin'amor, and she silently laughed to herself.
"Well, she thought, I have some time, for no one ever wakes up before six thirty in Ravenclaw. Intellectuals are such good sleepers."
Then, as she was finally calming down, turning and returning in her mind her unsuccessful attempts, this very night and the night before, to find answers to her problem amongst the dusty volumes of the Library's forbidden aisle, she quietly dozed off.
A sudden noise startled her ; then the question popped up out of nowhere.
"Would you be kind enough, Miss Mander, to let me know what you're doing outside of your dormitory at five thirty ?"
Completely awoken, Ysandra froze when she heard the unmistakable sneer underlying this slow and articulate drawl. Professor Severus Snape was standing near the bench, so close that she could have touched his robe, his eyes severely staring at hers.
While sitting down, the invisibility cloak had slipped from her head to her shoulders, giving her the astounding appearance of a head floating above the bench, but she was already half asleep, and too tired to notice.
"Well, someone else definitely did", she thought bitterly, and braced herself for what was to come. She looked up at Snape who opened his mouth again.
.And began to squeak.
****
Ysandra woke up : the wheels of the Hogwarts Express were squeaking continuously as the train stopped at his terminus. She briefly looked at her reflection in the window : pale, sleepy eyes, brown hair tousled. She certainly needed a pause before taking the boat to the School.
Decisively, she went out and, without a flicker of concern for her luggage, that would certainly be transferred to her new quarters in a very short time, she walked out of the station and headed to a nearby oak standing on top of the hill, at the exact place where her memories placed it and, as she had done ten years ago, before leaving Hogwarts, she sat on one of its prominent roots and let her thoughts wander from the past to the future at hand.
****