Gúðcræft
If you'd like an extended version with use and information about the book, let me know.
I paced back and forth for what seemed like the hundreth time; I didn't understand. I didn't want to understand, yet, I felt like I owed it to him, them, to at least try.
My footsteps echo throughout the stone room I was provided. I need a place to think, I need a place to think.
God I hate that man. The though ricocheted round my head, it was a thought I was intimately familiar with.
What a wicked sense of timing he has; by design or by necessity? Secretly, I pray I never find out. I don't want to know how deep the possible manipulations go, but I fear I already harbor the answers.
I shake my head to clear it of memories past. A stone, a snake, an escaped convict; I pause midstep as the images wash painfully into my conscious mind.
Regret and anger of a wasted life, the guilt—guilt of knowing that I was the reason he was there, regardless of the fact I went there to save him.
Damn it! How could I have been so stupid!
But then again, what would I have changed?
Nothing...
If that wasn't an enlightening thought, I'm not sure what is.
I ask the room to provide me a chair, as my mind moves onto the next pressing subject, the damn prophecy!
I didn't want to believe the words, as an otherworldly Proffessor Trelawney spun slowly above the metalic ripples of Dumbledore's pensieve. Was I the one with the power?
Did it matter...
...of course not.
It only takes one to believe, and unfortunatly I have two. I won't be able to get away from the belief that it must be me, regardless of my own belief.
Which just happens to be the complete opposite to what they believe...
I spend a few moments thinking about how my life turned into fate's play thing.
I try to think of any possible way I could defeat a mass murdering sociopath with god knows how many years experience, and I find myself lacking ideas.
What a surprise.
######
My pacing continues, my mind running in circles. New ideas assessed and discarded; nothing seems to be the answer.
Then again, my knowledge is pretty limited in wizarding world.
Heck, I don't even know if they pay taxes.
I'm so preoccupied I don't even notice the recent addition of a lectern to the room. It would take another ten minutes for me to notice.
######
The book was called Gúðcræft, by a nameless author. I momentarily wonder why it appeared in the room.
It didn't take me long to connect the dots between my thought process and the arrival of the book. A way to defeat the Dark Lord.
Still I didn't know what it was about, it was written in some weird language. The closest I'd seen was german, still it definitely wasn't that.
I yawn, and with it comes a jolt as to the time. I'd been so consumed in my muses, that I didn't even stop to contemplate the time.
I twist my wrist to show the clockface strapped there, only to remember it didn't work. I ask the room to provide me the time and I'm shocked at the number of hours that had passed.
I'd better get to the Dorms before somebody wakes.
I leave the room with a suspended clock reading 5:12 in my wake.
######
I return to the Gryffindor common room to find my friends asleep next to each other on the love seat. I smother a laugh.
They must have wait-up.
I decide to grab a quick shower to clean up before catching a few hours sleep; no doubt I will be bombarded with questions as to my whereabouts, among other things.
I watch as the mud and grime from my evenings adventures wash away down the drain. I catch myself wondering; If only it were that easy.