A/N: I've borrowed a bit in this chapter and the few following from the
book Lord of the Dead by Tom Holland, which is an absolutely amazing book
about Lord Byron, the poet. Go read it! I know they have at least a few
copies in the NYPL system, so if you live in NY, it'll be easy to get.
Also, I was feeling very, very descriptive and verbose when I was writing
this, so pardon me if it's a bit much.
Part Three: Soul-Stealing, Soul-Selling
The poetry
That comes from the squaring off between
And the circling is worth it
Finding beauty in the dissonance
**Harry**
I walked reluctantly back to my new dorm, feet dragging and head hanging. I let my feet lead me in the ways that my head didn't know how to take me. Suddenly, I found myself at the common room entrance. I said the password quietly, and walked through, into a full common room.
All of the heads turned to me, and I cringed and ran into my dorm room. I sat on my bed and closed the curtains tightly around me. Off of the pile next to my bed, I picked up the little birthday cards my friends had sent me. *happy seventeenth birthday*. This year wasn't turning out as well as I had hoped it would.
I looked at my watch, and it said halfway to lunchtime. I decided I would take a bit of a nap and then go to my afternoon classes. No one could blame me for missing a few classes. People would probably wonder that I hadn't missed more.
I sat up from my bed, and realized that I wasn't on my bed in the Slytherin dorms, but I was lying on a grassy field, looking down the side of a mountain. As I looked to my right, I saw a path leading to the stars, and a tall, tall, pale man was suddenly standing in front of me, offering a hand to help me up.
I got up without his help, and he walked off, motioning that I was to follow him. I walked along behind him, as he turned and walked effortlessly up the path that went into the air, into the stars. I envied the man his grace and beauty.
I started walking up the tightly corkscrewed path, and found that it was much harder to walk up than it had looked. Each step was an agony, and it was a heartwrenching trial to lift each foot off of the tiled floor and forwards. The compelling man that I was following paused every few paces, waiting for me to catch up.
After climbing for what seemed an eternity, I looked to my next step, and found it was solid ground again. This wasn't the path to the stars, then. I would have to wait until later to find that particular path. For now, I was still following the man, now up a mountain, now past a lake, now a field, now a forest, now a flowerbed. I sensed that I was going very quickly, and yet each pace took forever.
When we finally reached what seemed to be our destination, I found myself in an ancient garden, full of sculptures of strange beings and odd animals. I wondered what place I had found myself in, as my subconscious obviously wasn't making this up for me. I sat down on a carved stone bench that had quietly appeared behind me.
As suddenly as he had the last time, the tall man appeared in front of me again, and motioned for me to take his hand. I held it, and it was surprisingly cool, and the color of moonbeams and starlight. As I touched his hand, we were not in the garden any longer. We were in a beautiful hall, long table down the center, with glass windows and woven tapestries of utterly alien scenes on the walls. The floor was of flagstones, various colors all intermixed. The walls were a dark wood, almost black in the twilight. Tall windows adorned three walls, moonlight flowing in, making shadows flicker in the semidarkness.
I sat at the seat to the right of the head seat. My leader took the one of the two seats at the head of the table. A beautiful lady sat at the man's left hand, and across from me, Severus sat down, to his lady's left hand. Our guides held each other's hand, and I perceived that they were bonded as husband and wife. They looked into each other's eyes and slowly nodded.
Other men and women had been filtering into the room, and some were pale as starshine, like my guide, and others glowed in the moonlight with healthy golden radiance. One by one, all of the seats in the hall were taken. Our guides stood up, hands still intertwined. Pairs of the people seated around the table stood up, hands clasped and raised in a silent answer to their leader's gesture. Then, all were seated, and the only people still standing were our guides, who seemed to be king and queen, of a sort.
"We have decided" the woman started
"To quit this mortal plane" the man continued
"Our days have been secluded"
"And our time has gone to fame"
"We have found the ones to follow"
"Two Men of earthly fame"
"One with shell of green and inner gold"
"One of quiet, story untold"
"When the foretold time has come"
"When the boy turns twenty-one"
"Bound together by time and fate"
"We wait for these two to change their state"
"And we will teach them,"
"All they need to know" It felt like part of a novel of quests and magic dragons and swords. I looked at Severus and watched his eyes smile into mine.
/ / Severus \ \
I woke up, and rubbed the back of my neck. I shouldn't have allowed myself to fall asleep on my office sofa. I had had a very good dream, and a part of me, deep down, somewhere in my deepest soul, something felt different, lighter, as if I had put down a burden that I did not know I was even carrying. I stretched, and found that none of my joints creaked, and I did not feel the signs of the premature arthritis that comes of living in the cool, damp dungeons. I felt years younger.
I glanced at the ornate muggle-style grandfather clock in the corner of the room, and found that I still had time to shower and get up to the Great Hall on time for lunch. My nap had left me feeling refreshed and invigorated, things I did not often feel these days.
I walked into my rooms, shedding robes as I went. I closed and locked the bathroom door, and took my shower. As I stepped out, I said a quiet charm to remove all of the steam from the room. Something about steam just scares me a little bit.
I looked into my silent mirror (I didn't want to be critiqued or complimented by a semisentient mirror, so I bought an antique muggle one), and found that I looked younger. And healthier, for that matter. In fact, I looked positively more golden than I used to. I flicked through all of the events that had occurred in the past few days, and nothing indicated a sudden upturn in my health.
**Harry**
I woke up and stretched, feeling unaccountably good, even without considering my current circumstances. I glanced at my watch, and it read time to get ready for lunch. I got up, grabbing a fluffy towel as I walked into our private bathroom. I shed my robes and stepped into a hot shower.
As soon as I finished washing my hair, I stepped out of the shower, and, grabbing my glasses, I looked into the mirror. I looked somewhat. paler, and it looked good. I decided that I would get an eye correction charm, and grown my hair out. I felt like I couldn't look the same and have my place so thoroughly changed.
-----Hermionie-----
I looked up as Harry walked into the hall. Something had changed in the way he walked, and he looked taller and more confident than I had ever seen him. He had happiness in his stride, and pride, and something further than that, that I couldn't identify.
He sat down beside me at the table, and piled food onto his plate. "Hi, Hermionie!" Harry said, rather brightly. "Hey, Harry. How are you?"
"I feel great, all of a sudden. It's rather nice."
"Why didn't you show up to class this morning?"
"I talked to Severus, and then I accidentally fell asleep in the dorm." Harry looked surprised even by his own answers.
I looked closely at him. "Seveus?"
"Oh, yeah, sorry, Professor Snape. It's a long story. Don't ask"
/\/\ Draco /\/\
I watched Potter walk past, and turned to my friends, Crabbe and Goyle. Their dads had died in the raid, too, and now they didn't act so lumberingly stupid, and they had also decided they didn't agree with Lord Voldemort. It seems that they would follow me to the bitter end.
We decided we should play a prank on Potter and the mudblood. As soon as the Boy Who Was Interminably and Infinitely Annoying looked like he was getting to leave, we left the Great Hall and headed into my dorm room, planning to mess up Potter's things.
-----Hermionie-----
Harry suddenly sat up, and then relaxed again. He turned to me and said, "The proximity alarms on the wards I put up on my stuff have just gone off. I imagine somebody is trying to play a dirty prank on me. But the wards'll trap them. Do you think it's not too mean of me to let some of the dirty Slytherins sweat in a trap all afternoon?
"I think it's okay, Harry. It's your things that are being threatened, after all."
And with that, we walked off to our afternoon lessons.
/\/\ Draco /\/\
The three of us found ourselves trapped into something the idiot Potter had set up. It seemed so un-Gryffindor of him to have the forethought to set up traps for anyone playing pranks on his stuff.
As we fought the invisible bonds that held us tightly, I told the other two boys to hold still instead. "We'll just have to wait for Potter. He has to come back here to sleep, eventually. We can wait until then and then sneak into the kitchens for some dinner.
**Harry**
My afternoon lessons went very quickly. In Charms, we were flicking Frisbees around the room with our magic. In Care of Magical Creatures, Hagrid brought out some very large snakes, who I had some very insightful conversations with, while everyone else stood back, except for Hagrid and Malfoy, who seemed to have something of an understanding with the snakes, although he can't talk to them.
After dinner in the Great Hall, I found myself wandering back to my room, suddenly tired. I remembered the people that had tripped my alarms, and I hurried back to the dorms.
I walked into the room that I shared with Malfoy, and found that he, Crabbe, and Goyle were trapped in my wards. I stared at them for a moment, before sitting on my bed, slowly taking my shoes off, while the three boys wondered when I would let them out.
"I should keep you three there all night. It would teach you a lesson, not to touch my things." I noticed a wild, frightened look in Malfoy's eyes. "But I'll be nice, and let you three out. But know that each time that you try to get into my things, I'll leave you in the bonds for longer." I allowed the spell to release them, and sent them away to their own rooms.
I got changed for bed, and lay down, drawing the curtains close around me.
/ / Snape \ \
I felt tired as I dragged myself up to Dumbledore's office. I spoke the password, quietly, and walked in, making myself comfortable in an armchair, while petting Fawkes. Dumbledore walked in at the same time as Minerva did, and she sat a few seats away from me, while Dumbledore seated himself behind his desk.
I waited for Dumbledore to speak. Finally, he did. "I have a few favors to ask of you two. Minerva, I would like you to try to make sure that Ms. Granger's powers remain turned towards the good. And Severus, I would like you to keep an eye on Potter. Thank you, that is all"
I left his office, and got down to my rooms as fast as I could, and lay down, falling asleep quickly
Part Three: Soul-Stealing, Soul-Selling
The poetry
That comes from the squaring off between
And the circling is worth it
Finding beauty in the dissonance
**Harry**
I walked reluctantly back to my new dorm, feet dragging and head hanging. I let my feet lead me in the ways that my head didn't know how to take me. Suddenly, I found myself at the common room entrance. I said the password quietly, and walked through, into a full common room.
All of the heads turned to me, and I cringed and ran into my dorm room. I sat on my bed and closed the curtains tightly around me. Off of the pile next to my bed, I picked up the little birthday cards my friends had sent me. *happy seventeenth birthday*. This year wasn't turning out as well as I had hoped it would.
I looked at my watch, and it said halfway to lunchtime. I decided I would take a bit of a nap and then go to my afternoon classes. No one could blame me for missing a few classes. People would probably wonder that I hadn't missed more.
I sat up from my bed, and realized that I wasn't on my bed in the Slytherin dorms, but I was lying on a grassy field, looking down the side of a mountain. As I looked to my right, I saw a path leading to the stars, and a tall, tall, pale man was suddenly standing in front of me, offering a hand to help me up.
I got up without his help, and he walked off, motioning that I was to follow him. I walked along behind him, as he turned and walked effortlessly up the path that went into the air, into the stars. I envied the man his grace and beauty.
I started walking up the tightly corkscrewed path, and found that it was much harder to walk up than it had looked. Each step was an agony, and it was a heartwrenching trial to lift each foot off of the tiled floor and forwards. The compelling man that I was following paused every few paces, waiting for me to catch up.
After climbing for what seemed an eternity, I looked to my next step, and found it was solid ground again. This wasn't the path to the stars, then. I would have to wait until later to find that particular path. For now, I was still following the man, now up a mountain, now past a lake, now a field, now a forest, now a flowerbed. I sensed that I was going very quickly, and yet each pace took forever.
When we finally reached what seemed to be our destination, I found myself in an ancient garden, full of sculptures of strange beings and odd animals. I wondered what place I had found myself in, as my subconscious obviously wasn't making this up for me. I sat down on a carved stone bench that had quietly appeared behind me.
As suddenly as he had the last time, the tall man appeared in front of me again, and motioned for me to take his hand. I held it, and it was surprisingly cool, and the color of moonbeams and starlight. As I touched his hand, we were not in the garden any longer. We were in a beautiful hall, long table down the center, with glass windows and woven tapestries of utterly alien scenes on the walls. The floor was of flagstones, various colors all intermixed. The walls were a dark wood, almost black in the twilight. Tall windows adorned three walls, moonlight flowing in, making shadows flicker in the semidarkness.
I sat at the seat to the right of the head seat. My leader took the one of the two seats at the head of the table. A beautiful lady sat at the man's left hand, and across from me, Severus sat down, to his lady's left hand. Our guides held each other's hand, and I perceived that they were bonded as husband and wife. They looked into each other's eyes and slowly nodded.
Other men and women had been filtering into the room, and some were pale as starshine, like my guide, and others glowed in the moonlight with healthy golden radiance. One by one, all of the seats in the hall were taken. Our guides stood up, hands still intertwined. Pairs of the people seated around the table stood up, hands clasped and raised in a silent answer to their leader's gesture. Then, all were seated, and the only people still standing were our guides, who seemed to be king and queen, of a sort.
"We have decided" the woman started
"To quit this mortal plane" the man continued
"Our days have been secluded"
"And our time has gone to fame"
"We have found the ones to follow"
"Two Men of earthly fame"
"One with shell of green and inner gold"
"One of quiet, story untold"
"When the foretold time has come"
"When the boy turns twenty-one"
"Bound together by time and fate"
"We wait for these two to change their state"
"And we will teach them,"
"All they need to know" It felt like part of a novel of quests and magic dragons and swords. I looked at Severus and watched his eyes smile into mine.
/ / Severus \ \
I woke up, and rubbed the back of my neck. I shouldn't have allowed myself to fall asleep on my office sofa. I had had a very good dream, and a part of me, deep down, somewhere in my deepest soul, something felt different, lighter, as if I had put down a burden that I did not know I was even carrying. I stretched, and found that none of my joints creaked, and I did not feel the signs of the premature arthritis that comes of living in the cool, damp dungeons. I felt years younger.
I glanced at the ornate muggle-style grandfather clock in the corner of the room, and found that I still had time to shower and get up to the Great Hall on time for lunch. My nap had left me feeling refreshed and invigorated, things I did not often feel these days.
I walked into my rooms, shedding robes as I went. I closed and locked the bathroom door, and took my shower. As I stepped out, I said a quiet charm to remove all of the steam from the room. Something about steam just scares me a little bit.
I looked into my silent mirror (I didn't want to be critiqued or complimented by a semisentient mirror, so I bought an antique muggle one), and found that I looked younger. And healthier, for that matter. In fact, I looked positively more golden than I used to. I flicked through all of the events that had occurred in the past few days, and nothing indicated a sudden upturn in my health.
**Harry**
I woke up and stretched, feeling unaccountably good, even without considering my current circumstances. I glanced at my watch, and it read time to get ready for lunch. I got up, grabbing a fluffy towel as I walked into our private bathroom. I shed my robes and stepped into a hot shower.
As soon as I finished washing my hair, I stepped out of the shower, and, grabbing my glasses, I looked into the mirror. I looked somewhat. paler, and it looked good. I decided that I would get an eye correction charm, and grown my hair out. I felt like I couldn't look the same and have my place so thoroughly changed.
-----Hermionie-----
I looked up as Harry walked into the hall. Something had changed in the way he walked, and he looked taller and more confident than I had ever seen him. He had happiness in his stride, and pride, and something further than that, that I couldn't identify.
He sat down beside me at the table, and piled food onto his plate. "Hi, Hermionie!" Harry said, rather brightly. "Hey, Harry. How are you?"
"I feel great, all of a sudden. It's rather nice."
"Why didn't you show up to class this morning?"
"I talked to Severus, and then I accidentally fell asleep in the dorm." Harry looked surprised even by his own answers.
I looked closely at him. "Seveus?"
"Oh, yeah, sorry, Professor Snape. It's a long story. Don't ask"
/\/\ Draco /\/\
I watched Potter walk past, and turned to my friends, Crabbe and Goyle. Their dads had died in the raid, too, and now they didn't act so lumberingly stupid, and they had also decided they didn't agree with Lord Voldemort. It seems that they would follow me to the bitter end.
We decided we should play a prank on Potter and the mudblood. As soon as the Boy Who Was Interminably and Infinitely Annoying looked like he was getting to leave, we left the Great Hall and headed into my dorm room, planning to mess up Potter's things.
-----Hermionie-----
Harry suddenly sat up, and then relaxed again. He turned to me and said, "The proximity alarms on the wards I put up on my stuff have just gone off. I imagine somebody is trying to play a dirty prank on me. But the wards'll trap them. Do you think it's not too mean of me to let some of the dirty Slytherins sweat in a trap all afternoon?
"I think it's okay, Harry. It's your things that are being threatened, after all."
And with that, we walked off to our afternoon lessons.
/\/\ Draco /\/\
The three of us found ourselves trapped into something the idiot Potter had set up. It seemed so un-Gryffindor of him to have the forethought to set up traps for anyone playing pranks on his stuff.
As we fought the invisible bonds that held us tightly, I told the other two boys to hold still instead. "We'll just have to wait for Potter. He has to come back here to sleep, eventually. We can wait until then and then sneak into the kitchens for some dinner.
**Harry**
My afternoon lessons went very quickly. In Charms, we were flicking Frisbees around the room with our magic. In Care of Magical Creatures, Hagrid brought out some very large snakes, who I had some very insightful conversations with, while everyone else stood back, except for Hagrid and Malfoy, who seemed to have something of an understanding with the snakes, although he can't talk to them.
After dinner in the Great Hall, I found myself wandering back to my room, suddenly tired. I remembered the people that had tripped my alarms, and I hurried back to the dorms.
I walked into the room that I shared with Malfoy, and found that he, Crabbe, and Goyle were trapped in my wards. I stared at them for a moment, before sitting on my bed, slowly taking my shoes off, while the three boys wondered when I would let them out.
"I should keep you three there all night. It would teach you a lesson, not to touch my things." I noticed a wild, frightened look in Malfoy's eyes. "But I'll be nice, and let you three out. But know that each time that you try to get into my things, I'll leave you in the bonds for longer." I allowed the spell to release them, and sent them away to their own rooms.
I got changed for bed, and lay down, drawing the curtains close around me.
/ / Snape \ \
I felt tired as I dragged myself up to Dumbledore's office. I spoke the password, quietly, and walked in, making myself comfortable in an armchair, while petting Fawkes. Dumbledore walked in at the same time as Minerva did, and she sat a few seats away from me, while Dumbledore seated himself behind his desk.
I waited for Dumbledore to speak. Finally, he did. "I have a few favors to ask of you two. Minerva, I would like you to try to make sure that Ms. Granger's powers remain turned towards the good. And Severus, I would like you to keep an eye on Potter. Thank you, that is all"
I left his office, and got down to my rooms as fast as I could, and lay down, falling asleep quickly