Persistence
Chapter Three
Dreaming, Darkly
--
We lie on the bed, spent, her flame-coloured hair spilling on the gold sheets. A cool breeze blows around us, the night air bringing with it just a hint of salt. She looks up at me and smiles, and I can feel her eyes in my heart. We kiss, again and again, not pressing need but gently, so gently. She bites my ear and whispers my name. "Harry."
I take her face in my hands. Her eyes shine red in the darkness, her smile stretching and showing her fangs. Her skin wrinkles, then cracks. Black veins stretch from the corners of her mouth. I grip her neck, trying to choke, to crush her beneath me.
Darkness descends, drowning me, smothering, choking. Descends like thunder. Descends like death.
--
The Hospital Wing looked different at night, not the cheerful hub of activity it was in the day. I looked upon the beds, white and silent and empty. My ragged breathing was the only sound I could hear. Even the portraits were silent. I slipped off the covers and moved to the window, silent as a snake.
The moon was full.
Werewolves, it is said amongst the more knowledgeable healers, suffer from a mental as well as physical ailment. A werewolf's saliva carries a virus that transmits through contact with blood, it is true. The virus attacks the muscle and the bones, changing their structure and making them more flexible for the final transformation that completes the rising of the beast. But what is not so well-known is that the virus preys upon the mind, changing parts of the neocortex that control our powers of imagination. The world changes to the bitten as they themselves are changed, their perceptions becoming sharper, their minds fierce and merciless. A werewolf that has given in to the inner beast without degenerating into a mindless monster is almost superhuman. It does not need or conform to the laws that the mere preys have set up for their own protection.
Neither do I.
And the moon now calls for blood, a seductive whisper that shivers its way through my marrow, a song of blood and death and battle to come.
The werewolves have their beasts. I have my shadow within.
--
We apparated into the grounds of the Diggory manor. I could feel the wards protesting, the shivering web of spells trying to find a place to discharge their destructive power. I continued to murmur, coaxing, soothing the power into submission. I could feel Lucius and Mulcibur spreading out to the sides, Bella close behind me as I walked towards the front gates. They swung open as we approached, a gesture of welcome to guests approved by the Master of the Family. The wards settled back as we entered.
They met us in the front room, Amos and Mertha. A blue burst of magic came from the left, and I stepped back, knowing Bella perfectly capable of blocking it. I concentrated instead on the ruddy-faced wizard to the right who was already shouting out the killing curse. I sidestepped again, knowing no useful shielding object was near and needing none, then whispered a command that forced its way through the air and his hasty shield and threw him against the wall. His wand clattered to the floor. My next thought swirled purple around him, pinning him to the ground.
He stared at me, impassive. Crabbe had to be punished, I noted mentally. He had neglected to inform me that Amos Diggory was an occlumens. Fortunately I had no pressing need to extract information.
"Do you know why I am here?" I asked him. He continued staring at me, his brown hair slick with blood. I waited, patient, until he spat out his answer. "You killed my only son. You are here to kill me." His eyes unwillingly sought out the unconscious woman at the other end of the room.
"I could have dismantled your wards, and I chose not to. I could have killed you, had I wanted to. I chose not to." I waited again, watching his face becoming a bloodless grey. Then I smiled, slowly.
"I would never. Never!" He hissed, as I had always known he would. He would not, uncoerced. I glanced at Bella. She licked her lips.
"No. No. No. I wouldn't be yours, Voldemort! Not even for her life!" He was shouting as Bella began to twirl her wand around her fingers and gave him a smile. "It's not her life you should be worried about," she told him, her eyes gleaming with demented anticipation.
Both the Diggorys were screaming when I walked out.
Despite what others think of my actions, I receive no pleasure from tasks such as these. These things simply have to be done, to achieve the noble goal my ancestor had set for his heir a millennium ago. The time has finally come for the pure to rule above those of inferior stock, as it always should have been. And Amos would be ideal for my plans, the one man they would never suspect of aiding Slytherin's Heir. But I could never count on a person such as him being completely under my control. Confronted with his wife's very sanity at my mercy, he would not even wish to break my curse. No mistake would I make, this time... no repeat of the catastrophe fourteen years ago.
I looked at the moon, full and bright as gold. The screams went on behind me, male and female voice intertwining, as I thought upon follies and scars...
--
The pack had run itself to exhaustion by dawn.
I stretched myself, cracking the coating of mud and grime that had settled over my body during the course of the night. My body seemed sore, as it always did these days, much worse than it used to be even five years ago. Still, no damage seemed to be permanent, and except for the sheer bone-weariness that had me in its grip, I was in better shape than I had any right to be after such a wild night. I rose to my feet, looking down the river, and froze.
And remembered.
The body was lying on the riverbed, face down. I turned him over and found him breathing, if shallowly. The right side of his head was a sight, a thick congealed mass of blood, where I'd bashed him with all my strength last night, for a reason that was even now just coming back to me. Then I turned and found the reason watching.
She was as tall as me, and naked beneath the coat of mud. She wasn't beautiful at all, except the dazzling grace that comes of the nature itself, the beauty of a leaf swaying in the wind or the breath of a Dragonfly on a dewdrop an autumn morning. I didn't know her name.
She had run with us last night, till the blood of the pack was up and they had demanded her. She had tried to escape, as they always did- through playfulness or sheer terror, and the pack had tried to hunt her down. Only I, sane and in control of my wolf, had objected... I'd come upon the werewolf trying to force himself on her, and out of some misguided human impulse had tried to help her run away. The resulting fight had more than sapped me of my remaining strength.
She was watching me now, from a distance of twenty yards. For a moment her eyes flashed with an unreadable expression, but my legillimency wasn't up to deciphering it. Then she turned and walked away.
I watched her vanish into the trees. Then I turned and watched the werewolf instead. Finally I peered into the dense forest surrounding us, hoping to catch a glimpse of civilization with my sharpened senses. Nothing but trees, as far as I could see. Nor did the river bring any sign of a human habitation with it.
Sighing, I walked back to the werewolf and hoisted him painfully over my shoulder. He would probably be able to help me with my enquiries... but I was in no condition for a side-apparition. And leaving him here in the forest, alone and unaided, would almost certainly mean his death…
Damn you for getting me into these situations, Albus.
I started the long and painful walk downriver, towards the east. Towards the rising sun.
