Chapter 10: Ghosts of Ancient Magic.

Mendrick spoke disjointedly, his mouth twisting and stumbling awkwardly over the words, the brilliant white light glowing from his eyes giving him a mad look. Even his voice was changed: his dry cackle turned into a low, thrumming harshness.

Though he was only a few yards away, and Lily could hear him perfectly, yet the words that issued from his mouth did not appear to tally with the way his lips moved: like a badly-dubbed foreign movie. His white, glowing, eyes were pupil-less, but Lily knew they were trained on her.

"Through Ravenclaw's wisdom and Gryffindor courage shall Slytherins' spawn be destroyed,' his low voice reverberated round the room, 'e'en as a never-ending war the Tree of Life itself endangers; the force that breathes ancient life from the depths below this Northern land will recede back to its beginnings and magic will be no more…'

Mendrick's arm came up suddenly jerkily, and pointed straight at her, so that she jumped back 'Thou hast been touch'd by the Spirit of the Forest's ancient magic. The stag will begat the blood sacrifice that will end the war. The time is nigh when the Stag and the Doe unite. The fruit of thy womb will change all this or not, the choice is thine."

'What?' her voice came out as a choked whisper.

'The choice is thine!' Mendrick's lips twisted violently with the strange way of enunciating the words, but the finger still pointing accusingly at Lily had started to tremble.

A trembling that rapidly spread to his entire body.

'Mendrick… Mendrick!' she cried in alarm as the trembling turned to shaking, and the old wizards' body started convulsing.

A strangulated cry came from his mouth and his face twisted in pain, foam flecking his lips even as he continued to try to speak, though the harsh guttural words were unintelligible now.

'Mendrick! Snap out of it!' she screamed, horrified, pointing her wand at him, yet at her wits end what spell to use or what would even be any use.

She took a few steps forward and reached out, intending to physically pull the old wizard away from that Oracle hole he was stuck to when, from the corner of her eyes, she saw a movement in the dim recesses of the room to one side, as though the walls themselves were moving.

Before she could react, however, she felt a vice-like grip around her wand-arm and saw that Mendrick's outstretched hand had grabbed her wrist, even as his body's shaking suddenly stilled. That was all the time she had to think however, for next instant, a sharp ice-cold sensation from his hand travelled up her arm and centred in her head, like a shard of ice. Her vision blurred immediately and a gasp of pain escaped her as the pain intensified. She tried to pull her hand free, but couldn't: her hand was fused to Mendrick's as though encased in freezing ice, and all she could see was the eerie glow of the old wizards' eyes: a glow that swallowed her up too, so that the room disappeared in the blinding whiteness.

'Lily!' an anguished and familiar voice called out from somewhere in the white light, but it seemed to come from far away, and her head felt like it was going to explode… faint shapes where stirring in the white light… moving, flowing, figures… they coalesced further … she recognised the faint outline of Hogwarts' hall, its' details fuzzy with the blinding whiteness. There seemed to be a circle of spectators there, blurry white faces she didn't recognise. What were they looking at? Then she saw him: Voldemort: tall and dark, gliding silently within the circle, as though stalking prey, wand held in duelling position and his pale face more deformed than she remembered, though the evil menace of the thin smile on his lips was the same.

What was happening to her?! Moaning, she shook her head, trying to rid herself of the terrifying vision, but the icy pulsating sensation from Mendrick's hand to her own shot more pain down her arm and into her head: the white light searing her mind's eye extinguished the vision of Hogwarts, the spectators and even Voldemort, but before it did, in a last split-second moment of clarity, it highlighted a smaller figure facing Voldemort, the one he was about to duel: thin, with a shock of dark, tousled hair that stood up at the back, a young wizard stood fearlessly and proudly in front of Voldemort, wand at the ready.

It was as if the blinding white light that filled her head had focussed all its energy, for that split second, on that tousle-headed young man, for as he turned slightly to face the circling Voldemort, Lily caught a fleeting glimpse of his profile: a glint of light reflecting on round spectacles, a thin face, dirtied by sweat and battle stains, untidy dark hair flopping over his brow and sticking up at the back.

James Potter?!

Before her mind had assimilated what she had seen, the blinding light obscured everything again in a blanketing whiteness and then other figures took their place: blurry, fast-moving figures and places she did not recognise, coming into focus for a split second then gone again: her head seemed about to implode and her eyes were burning. Someone was calling her name but she couldn't answer, she couldn't rid herself of the visions that were unfolding in her mind like a speeded- up film on cine camera. She thought she saw the same room she stood in, strangely-dressed shadowy people lining its blood-stained walls; she thought she saw Hogsmeade, smaller and dirtier than she knew it now; she thought she saw goblins walking openly among strangely-dressed muggles, and dragons where they ought not to have been: a surreal landscape she couldn't make heads or tails of, and, through it all, her staring wide-open eyes ached agonisingly and her head throbbed viciously.

'Lily…Lily!'

The familiar voice, though strangely muffled, sounded close to her now, urgently calling her name but her vision had turned into something that made her gasp in fear: Voldemort's face was looking at her from beneath a hooded cloak, only a few feet away. His red eyes bore into hers, as his thin lips twisted cruelly, and, like a rabbit frozen in the glare of headlights she knew she was powerless to do anything. Her heart was beating wildly against her ribcage, yet she couldn't move. Her breath came raggedly, and her legs shook beneath her. Even though the remnants of reason were telling her that this could NOT be real, that this was some sort of nightmarish vision, when Voldemort raised his wand and there was a blinding flash of green light, she screamed.

A scream identically echoed within the world of her vision.

Everything darkened then: Voldemort was gone, as well as the nightmare-filled white light searing her eyeballs, and there was an agonising sensation in her wand arm, the one Mendrick was holdng.

Only he wasn't.

As the round chamber came back into focus she saw Mendrick was slumped on the floor, his body convulsing once more. The pain in her head lifted and she blinked, realising her face was wet with tears, her throat raw, and her wand arm throbbing violently. The incandescent white light from the Oracle had somehow spread to the Tree of Life on the ceiling, so that its' dark red, intricate branches and roots were alight with a white glow, spreading above her head like a swathe of white lace. Below it, strange black flames were trailing hungrily around the small chamber with a menacing hiss, as though chasing and extinguishing the blazing white light which was now reduced to a glow from the Oracle and the tree drawing above.

A gurgling, rattling sound at her feet made her glance down at Mendrick's shaking body. His eyes were closed now, bloody tears staining his wrinkled cheeks a dark red and his foam-flecked lips were still mouthing words she could not make out as he gasped and grovelled on the floor of the chamber.

Her first reaction was repulsion: those terrifying visions had come from Mendrick or through Mendrick… but that instant, the menacing hiss of the black fire grew louder as did the strange whispering voices she'd heard earlier. Unmistakeably angry voices in a strange tongue. And the black fire… she thought she'd seen it once before…

What the hell was happening now? What fresh horror had awakened in this chamber?

The pain in her head was gone, but it had left her weak and light-headed, her right hand was in atrocious pain where Mendrick had grasped her, and she'd dropped her wand… She glanced down, but what she saw made her recoil in horror: the flesh of her wrist was blackened and disfigured with red-raw weals striped across it, the sleeve of her robe burnt away.

Almost sobbing in anguish, she turned round, looking for the door, but the cold fire of the black flames were darkening everything. She had no hope of saving herself, let alone Mendrick without a wand, and the draining weakness of what had happened was making her head swim.

She was fainting and couldn't stop it. She would die here, her mind polluted by horrifying visions she did not understand, her body prey to a sinister magic she shouldn't have dabbled in.

'Help...'

She had meant to shout, perhaps Remus might hear, but the word came out as a childish whimper and she felt herself sinking, the darkness closing in.

However, with the last vestiges of consciousness, even as she fell, she knew she hadn't hit the ground for a pair of arms had wrapped strongly around her, lifting her off her feet.

Then everything went black.

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII IIIIIIIIIIIII

Severus Snape's breath came raggedly as he stumbled down the rock-hewn tunnels: it was adrenaline and sheer willpower that kept him going onwards, for Lily Evans was still unconscious in his arms, but the sibilant whispers of the voices, though fainter away from that cursed Oracle chamber, still followed him, goading him on, in spite of the deadweight of Lily's body.

He'd been stumbling along the labyrinthine tunnels for a full 10 minutes now, and Lily showed no signs of coming round.

He was used to flitting around the dark passageways of Hogwarts' dungeons, so he was fairly sure he could retrace his steps out of this place, but apart from the eerie voices following him from the chamber there were other sounds: deep rumbling vibrations he could feel beneath his feet as though something moved or lived deep beneath the core of the mountain. Whatever it was, was larger than even the fabled dragon that lived in the bowels of Gringotts bank: it was almost as if it were the rumbling of an imminent explosion of a volcano….

He glanced down at Lily's face: it was pale and drawn in the jerky light of the wands he held in his hand, but at least her eyes were closed and dark. Minutes before, they had been glowing eerily white like Mendricks', shocking him into throwing the only spell he knew might break contact between her and the old wizard: Black Fire.

It was a spell he had found in his Great-grandfather's book and had subsequently modified and improved: it was dark magic, for the black flames consumed and denatured the fabric of magic itself: cold flames that would not burn, but extinguish magical life from the inside out, acting as slow or as fast as the castor of the spell desired.

He had last used that spell on James Potter's crowd of jeering friends the day he had humiliated him in front of Lily Evans. He had lost his head that day. More than that, he had lost Lily Evans too.

Yet here she was now, a heavy warmth cradled in his arms and the reason why he was risking his life in the bowels of Ben Cόrhveinn, pursued by an ancient and incontrollable magic.

Yet it was worth it. He clutched her to him tightly, her tear-stained face resting on his shoulder and the meadow-sweet smell of her so agonisingly familiar, that it broke even through the urgent thoughts and plans of escape already whirling through his brain even at that moment.

A grimace of pain passed fleetingly across her face and she moaned softly, bringing her blackened hand up to her face. She was coming round. He hoped she would, and soon, for they'd move faster if she was on her feet again. Her injured wrist was resting on her front now. He looked at it with a painful twist in his stomach.

He had done that. The black flames had severed her connection with that mad old fool, but it had left her hand and wrist disfigured and blackened. That was another reason why he wanted her to regain consciousness: he was the only one who could reverse the effects of that spell and it had to be done soon, or the damage would grow like a cancer.

He cursed himself under his breath, his conscience prickling uneasily. He may not have had to resort to that if he had somehow stopped her sooner. He should've stopped her going in; he should've stopped her going anywhere near that bloody Oracle; or listen to that mad old fool; he should've….

He sighed in frustration. He hadn't realised the danger until Mendrick had seized Lily by her hand, so that whatever was Possessing him passed onto her too, and her beautiful eyes had lost their normal green and started to glow white too.

He had almost lost his head then: he knew he couldn't touch either of them if he wanted to retain his senses, but the anguished expression on Lily's face, and his own helplessness, had the same effect. Thankfully the Black Fire had severed her connection to Mendrick, and had, unexpectedly, fought the Oracle's powers to some extent.

Mendrick, however, had gone beserk.

The old wizard, silvery eyes still aglow with remnants of his Possession and gabbling frenziedly had attacked him savagely as he bent retrieve Lily's wand, for somehow he see him even though he was still under a Disillusionment Charm.

He hit the old wizard hard with a repelling spell and left him grovelling on the floor while he searched for Lily's wand. He found it just in time to catch Lily as she fell in a dead faint. It had been difficult to carry her out of the small opening to the chamber, but the adrenaline high gave him extra strength, and he'd been hurrying down these dark corridors ever since.

If only he'd acted sooner…But it was no use crying over spilt potion…he had to get her away from here now. He was sure it was a case of Possession: ancient magic that few Dark Wizards had practiced, for it endangered the mind of the Possessor as well as the Possessed if incorrectly done.

His heart beat faster at the implications of his own thoughts. From his own words, Mendrick had dabbled with that Oracle for years, and its influence had clearly addled his brain permanently, whereas Lily had been under its influence for only a few minutes, at the most, but still….

Lily moaned softly again and stirred, her eyes screwed shut against the pain in her arm, the memory of what happened, or both. Her good arm slipped behind his neck, as she tried to lift up her head.

'Lily…' he whispered urgently, willing her to wake up.

The noise from the pursuing voices had dwindled to a faint whisper, but the low rumbling vibrations below his feet had not. If this mountain was a dormant volcano, or if something more sinister, but just as deadly, moved in its bowels, they had to find their way out of there fast…

'Sev…?'

He glanced down to find a pair of bewildered, almond-shaped eyes looking up at him. Only they were focussed somewhere on his chest.

Damn! He was still under the Disillusionment Charm!

How did she know it was him? After what happened in the chamber, waking up to the sensation of being carried by a ghost must be alarming for her, to say the least. Yet she did not scream as he had half-expected: with a small sigh, she actually clung on tighter as though for comfort.

'It – It's me, Lily. I forgot –'

But a second later her eyes widened in sudden comprehension, he heard a sharp intake of breath and she started struggling. He set her down and pointed his wand at himself, extinguishing the wandlight as, with a silent spell, he reversed the Disillusionment Charm.

'Lumos' he whispered a few seconds later, and Lily stood wide-eyed and trembling in the double glare of white-blue beam of light from both their wands which he still held in his hands. She was hugging herself and shivering, her head bent away from the light.

'The light - it hurts...' she said, her voice quivering and shading her eyes with her good hand.

Severus hastily extinguished the wandlight and conjured some soft bluebell flames which he levitated some distance away from them. Lily's hand came away from her eyes and they fixed themselves on his, the expression in them oddly vulnerable and childlike.

At least there wasn't that polite indifference he so hated. Then again, merlin knew how she was feeling after that being Possessed, or whatever it was that had happened back in that Oracle chamber. He swallowed drily, and took a step towards her.

'Are you alright? Can you wa-?'

'What are you doing here, Severus?'

He stopped suddenly. Her voice was steadier now and she took a step backwards. Even though she was still hugging herself tightly, shivering beneath her cloak, he could see her struggling to take control, to disguise her fear and put up that impenetrable wall of cold indifference between them.

Like hell she would!

'Don't!' he spat, putting all the anguish and frustration of the past couple of hours into that one angry word.

It echoed around the rock-hewn tunnel as with a few steps he closed the distance between them, and pushed his face close to hers, glaring down at her from only inches away, so that she could fucking well see what he'd been through on her behalf.

She actually took a surprised step backwards at his tone, until her back came against the smooth carved wall of the tunnel. In the soft light of the bluebell flames, her pale face grew whiter still.

'Just - don't,' he repeated, in a lower, but just as menacing, voice.

Anyone seeing, at such close quarters, the darkening look in Severus Snapes' eyes glittering from the inky blue-black shadows cast by the blue flames, would have quailed at the sight, or sought the quickest route of escape.

But not Lily Evans.

She gazed up at him steadily, drawing herself to full height, even though her face was growing paler with the effort, and she did not quite succeed in hiding her trembling limbs.

'Then answer my question,' she said simply, her eyes never leaving his.

He gazed at her silently for a second, resisting the impulse to yell her own question back at her. Did she realise what she had just put them both through? What they still hadn't really gotten away from?

'I followed you,' he said instead, 'I overheard you telling Lupin about coming to Ben Cόrhveinn to meet Mendrick'

Her eyes widened suddenly in remembrance 'Mendrick! He's –'

But Severus anticipated her. 'Mendrick is beyond your help right now. He's been at that Oracle once too often...'

'You know him?'

'I do now,' he spat out savagely, his head still throbbing from Mendrick's unexpected and savage, bare-handed attack.

'Why d'you follow me, Severus?'

She was looking up at him with an unreadable expression in her eyes, and he knew it was a loaded question. With the shock of understanding, he realised that beneath the hard look she was now giving him, there was fear: she dreaded to hear his answer; her pale face and trembling hands betrayed her, in spite of her defiant stance.

But what could he answer? Wasn't it obvious to her why he'd come?

'Did you hear what you wanted to hear?' Lily continued, hardening her voice. 'D'you understand what the Oracle said? I'm sure Voldemort will be very pleased you've uncovered a plot to stop his senseless war!'

He stood rooted to the spot, feeling himself become pale and deathly still. So that was what she had been thinking. How could she? How could her opinion of him sink so low? His body still ached from Mendrick's beserk attack, they were deep inside a rumbling mountain with Merlin-knew-what unspeakable magic hot on their tails, and she thought him nothing but a spy! A white-hot rage rose in him, filling the shocked void left by her words.

'Is that what you think?' his voice sounded deceptively quiet.

'Why? What else did you come for?'

He smashed his fist into the wall, inches away from her head as the welling rage inside him overflowed, blinding him. She jumped, startled at his uncharacteristic reaction. As pain shot up from his bruised knuckles, he knew she was right to look at him in such wide-eyed surprise: but there was a strange grim satisfaction in using your fists and not your wand ...he had found that out last year when he punched Potter in the face. Or perhaps it was his father's legacy showing through...

She was looking up at him in open-mouthed surprise. There was none of the previous disguised fear, but only a wondering, astonished look. Well, what the fuck did he care? Let her! She could add this to the list of unsavoury aspects of his character that she seemed so willing to see now. For a moment he stared at her in silence, panting hard, and a muscle in his jaw twitched.

'Mendrick spoke in a dead language even I couldn't understand,' he said finally, his voice venomous and low, 'It was just gibberish!'

She blinked, and was about to interrupt, but he cut across her.

'Obviously, I interrupted your fun. Well, sorry for that, I should've just left you there,' he continued, his voice dripping sarcasm, 'However, you're free to go back, I'm sure once Mendrick wipes that blood from his eyes and calms down a bit, he can liaise again on your behalf with whoever or whatever has Possessed the both of you...'

'Severus, I –' but she gulped guiltily as his eyes bore accusingly into hers, and lowered her own.

He gritted his teeth and took a deep breath through his nose, trying to restrain the angry, scathing words that came to his mind. Next instant, he wished he hadn't, for her sweet smell, her close proximity, the shiny tear-streaks down her cheek, threatened to make him lose all the pent-up rage that still simmered inside him.

And he didn't want that. No more weakness. That, the hard lessons of life had taught him, always backfired in painful and humiliating ways.

He closed his eyes briefly and took a step backwards. Their allegiance to opposing sides of the two factions in this war had long ago come between them, but if she thought he was here to sell her out to Voldemort, then she'd forgotten what had once had passed between them. She shouldn't have, whatever misguided choices she'd made thereafter. He, for one, could never forget, but neither would he let those emotions get the better of him again.

'Now, since you think the Dark Lord is on tenterhooks to hear an earful of gibberish from an addle-pated old wizard, I mustn't keep him waiting...'

'Stop that!'

Two angry red spots had appeared in Lily's cheeks, but even as her eyes flickered to his, they couldn't hold his gaze and fell again, and she blinked rapidly.

'Why? I'm a Death-Eater in the making. Anyone should, I suppose, think I'd be happy to uncover a plot to stop the Dark Lord's war and expose the perpetrators... Anyone but you!'

'What am I supposed to think? 'my loyalties to the Dark Lord are unwavering'- that's what you told me that - that night, last June,' Lily's voice rose higher, but it was quivering with anguish now, rather than a righteous anger 'And Mendrick spoke in plain English... you heard him, -'

'You heard him. Since at the time, you were, I think, Possessed, only you could understand,' he answered coldly, 'Now, lest you think I have any further nefarious plans ...here's your wand.'

And he offered her her own wand, handle first and resting on the cuff of his left sleeve in the accepted formal manner dictated by wizarding etiquette.

She put out her hand hesitantly and took it, staring at it with glistening eyes that still wouldn't meet his. Then he silently whirled around, and turned his back on her, leaving her standing there alone.

He strode purposefully down the carved passageway, ignoring the screaming voice in his head that was telling his to stop! Stop and go BACK!

He was leaving the one witch that ever meant anything to him alone in a dark tunnel, pursued by the ghosts of ancient magic. A few minutes later, as the darkness enveloped him, he slowed down and lit his wand. The tunnel was deserted and silent except for the thrumming from deep within the ground. The voices were gone but the strange hum had become louder. He hadn't noticed while he was speaking to Lily. It was a strong throbbing beat, rising in readiness for something... What, he didn't know.

And Lily was somewhere back there, probably realising only now, for she had been unconscious before, that the mountain had awakened somehow. She'd never come out of there alive. A mental image of her blackened wrist, her burnt, shaking hand as she took the wand he offered her, came back to him...

Damn! He had been a fool! He'd come so far only to abandon her at the end – she couldn't have been thinking straight after what happened,

He turned round and broke into a run, determined to go back and get her – forcibly, if necessary, when suddenly the ground shook violently beneath his feet and he lost his balance. It lasted only a few seconds then the shaking stopped, replaced by a dead silence: even the humming vibrations were gone.

Swearing fluently he jumped up when something – something just at the edge of his perception - froze him in his tracks: someone or something moved in the darkness of the tunnels and labyrinth beyond.

'Nox' he whispered, and in a thick darkness alive with possibilities, he stood and waited.