AN: Well, I said the next chapter only needed betaing. And guess what xD
Ookami, I'm glad you still like it. As for Umbridge...my muses are still arguing but I'm almost certain she's surviving this. Which is annoying as I am probably going to have to write a death scene for her now. MalystryxII, thanks. With the Gift, well...that's an interesting story. Suffice to say that I didn't want to take the uber-mage-of-doom path and give Harry and Adept level Mage-Gift. For those that know the Velgarth world however, you've probably already realized that in its own way Projective Empathy is far more powerful. Especially in a situation were no one can block it. Tentrees...um...er...yeah. In all honesty, she doesn't deserve that sort of attention – not in my book at least. Taking the time and effort to do something that complex is just making her seem more important than she is.
This is a very dangerous chapter for this story as it's brings a bit more of the Velgarth cross in. Hope you like it.
Beta's note: DO NOT eat sweets while reading the beginning of this chapter. If you do we do not promise to cover the charge for damaged teeth. We also take no responsibility for melted persons.
Stupid Shinju, hijacking my authors note...
She surveyed herself after the millennia of sleep, searching for what she had lost and gained. Her power had grown beyond anything that her original creators had been able to calculate, but that power now only extended to her walls and no further. There was something strange and powerful that held her back from the world beyond there and she did not understand it. But for now, only a part of her mind focused on that anomaly. The majority of her being was focused on those three of her charges that had been closest to the assassin and therefore closest to the vast pulse of Power she had blasted him with. One was OK, but that made sense. Her Gifts were either un-awakened or so passive as to not exist. The other two, if she could have winced, she would have. They were both suffering severe power-shock and if it hadn't been for their own non-Gift magic, they couldn't have come out of the experience with their Senses intact. From the minds of those within the school, it seemed that Gift magic had been forgotten or suppressed, she wasn't sure. Then again, she didn't know what had happened after the Gate.
-FLASHBACK-
The winter had passed, but one could not have told it by the frost that adorned her grounds in silken finery. :There are,: she thought with no small amount of amusement :some advantages to being without flesh and blood, however much I may wish for them on occasion.: She gazed out over her dominion, feeling the magic stretching, seeking the edge of her control. It was a more than daily exercise, stretching the boundaries to solidify them and spread them out further still. Her creators thought that someday her influence might spread from shore to shore, stretching out into the waters beyond. Somehow though, she doubted they'd be alive to see it. It saddened her, how the steady march of years wore upon her creators, those who had given so much to create who and what she was. But...it still hurt to watch them fade.
An energy source flared to life within her wards, almost blinding in its intensity. A circle of light grew out the air as she focused her attention on the location within the grounds, forming a figure out of her magic to examine it more closely. Reaching out tentatively, she slid one of her hands through the ring, 'tasting' the power within it. It was...strange, very strange, unlike anything she had felt before and almost otherworldly in its texture. It had sliced through her wards without her even noticing it and she had no clue as to what it was. She stepped back quickly, solidifying her avatar and sounding a discreet alarm within herself as she glimpsed what lay inside the blazing ring of magic. A score or more of figures, all dressed in strange robes, but it was what was behind them that caused her to pull back in alarm. Wild magic, an incomprehensible quantity of it, pouring through the other end of the whatever-it-was towards her. She dodged to the side as the first figure flew out of the portal and her magic sliced into the barely conscious man's mind, fastening on to the first form it located. Generally she could control the process, but she was too shocked by what she had just seen to do so. Her form shifted, an aura of soft light rippling out around her as part of the guise she was taking. She felt herself grow thinner, loose black armour replacing her light robe and then her vision blurred suddenly as her eyes warped. She 'blinked' for a second as she observed herself. Her skin had bronzed, robes replaced by black leathers with a sword at her side. But what stunned her were her eyes, eyes that held neither iris nor pupils. Instead there was only the star studded velvet of a cloudless night sky. She heard a gasp from the man at her feet as several more fell through the hole in the ground.
"Goddess, I beg of you, help us." He collapsed from exhaustion and she leant down in front of him, pulling power from within herself and forming it into the most powerful healing spell she knew. Laying an ethereal hand upon his head she let the power pour into him as another part of herself reached deep into the web of power that formed her being and wove a pattern of revitalising Power into the area around her. She looked into the portal again, seeing no more figures, only an unstoppable wave of uncontrolled magic bearing down upon them. Magic like that could fracture the very fabric of reality and that could not happen. So she did something that she had always hated doing, ever since she found that she could. She sliced deep into the mind of man before her, searching for knowledge. A second later she looked up with purpose in her eyes. :A...Gate. I guess it is an apt title. But it should have closed, there is no one here keeping it open unless-: she cut off her thoughts like an infected limb and focused on the Gate before her, tracing the web that held it together and desperately searching for a weak point as the magic surged closer. :I can't find it...I don't know how to end the spell but I have to. I have to! This dream will not die here!: She took a firm 'hold' on the ring of magic that was the terminus, reached into the heart of herself and pulled with all the power she could still muster. The Gate resisted, the wild magic holding it open twisting beneath her hands before collapsing as her will overwhelmed its capricious nature.
A burning blob of wild magic spurted through the rift as it closed, the very edge of the wave of power that had been pouring down the connection, and she flung herself between it and the helpless people around her. Her own magic flared around her, reaching out to absorb the energy as she raised her hands to meet it. The ball of Power slammed into her outstretched palms and the world exploded in light and pain. Pain...such a strange thing for an immortal to feel. Her vision blurred, the view around her fluxing as the wildfire of another reality's magic tore into her being. Her vision shifted again, a million colours exploding into life around her before going black.
When she came to, Rowena was crouched beside her form. She could feel herself flickering, the wild Power still roaring through her, changing what she was from the inside out. She opened her mouth, trying to force words through the pain. "Mother...help me." Rowena looked up as the whisper reached her ears, eye's widening. "How are yo-No it doesn't matter. Take me inside and show me what happened." She shuddered and shook her head.
"It's...it's not safe." She reached deep into herself, grasping the small part of herself that was still unchanged and shaped it into an illusion. "Lo-look." She gasped out, holding out her hand as the image swam into being above it. Her 'teeth' grated silently as she forced the illusion to hold its form. "Are...are they safe?" She asked softly between changes.
"The people who came through that porta-"
"It's called a Gate, Mother. But yes, them." Rowena reached out and caressed her cheek.
"They're all fine. A few have something that looks like magical exhaustion, but you kept them safe." Her eyes darkened. "Quite possibly at the cost of what you are." Tears sparkled in the Founder's voice as the words slipped through her lips. "Cerys, I have no idea what hit you and without knowing that, I can't help you. And it's changing you, I can tell that from my connection to the school. I can't imagine how much pain you it must be causing you."
"I...I've been better, can we leave it at that?" Rowena laughed, choking back a sob and Cerys was about to reach out to her when a pair of arms lifted her gently so she could stand and held her steady.
"Rowena, we have to get her into the castle if this is going to work." Her mother nodded, her control breaking as tears flowed freely down her cheeks.
"I...I know Godric. I just..."
"You're going to put me to sleep aren't you." It wasn't a question. Cerys looked between two of the four most important people in her world and sighed. "How long is it going to be before you realise I can read all four of you like one of Mother's textbooks?" She laid a hand on her mother's shoulder and squeezed gently. "I know you hate to do it, but you don't have a choic-" Her voice cut off as a new wave of pain swept through her and her 'body' shuddered under the stress. She struggled to raise her head before letting it fall. "Uncle, take me home." Godric nodded shortly before gathering her up in his arms and sprinting for the school, the years falling away for a few short minutes as she poured what little Power she could still touch into him. Tearing through the Entrance Hall, he took the stairs five at a time, heading for 'her' room. She Felt Rowena hurtling through the Hall behind them, her wand weaving a board of solid air beneath her feet. She quite literally flew past them, calling out to alert the other Founders. A faint smile formed through the pain. She already had.
The doors to her heart flew open as her mother shot through them, spinning once to lower her speed and then dropping gracefully to the ground. She swept her hand round, raising Cerys's bed out of the floor and calling up the warding circles. Here in her heart, things like wands were a scarcely needed formality. Salazar and Helga came running into the chamber just behind Godric as Rowena was raising the last of the wards to protect their most precious creation.
"Rowena, what happened?" Salazar cried, the shifts he was feeling in the school hammering through him. Godric laid their collective daughter on her bed as Rowena explained.
"I don't know all the details. I think she was playing with her boundaries again and noticed the Gate. I have no idea how it got through the wards, much less where the people who came through it are from but she threw herself in front of them to stop a bolt of wild-magic. And before you ask Sal, I already tried to cleanse it. This stuff is weird, everything I've tried either reflects off or is absorbed without a trace." Cerys's eyes flickered open again, she had passed out again on the way to the room.
"Father..." She moaned and he rushed to her side. His eyes widened as her form flickered before him.
"Cerys...how?"
"I had to save them Father. I know, I know, I should have thought first but there wasn't the time. I'm sorry, I was stu-" She was cut off by his finger on her lips.
"Shhh, love. You're not me remember. You're all of us. Asking you not to save them would have been like me asking Godric to think before he acted."
"Hey, I always think before I act!" The man in question retorted.
"Yeah, you just ignore the logical conclusion." Salazar shot back jokingly.
"As much as I enjoy the humour," she hissed as another spasm shot through her, "I think there's something you need to do." He nodded sadly and she reached up to stroke his cheek. "In case I don't get the chance before you go, you've been the best Father I could have ever wished for." She gestured her other parents forward and held out her hands. Godric and Helga grasped her right whilst Rowena and Salazar clenched her left so tightly she would have suffered blood loss were she human. "I can never thank you enough. Mother, for giving me a mind that the best would envy. Helga, my Aunt for the discipline to use that mind. Godric, Uncle, you gave me courage where I thought there was none and the strength to reach beyond what I was. And Salazar, you brought it all together and added the thirst and ambition to do great things with the gift you gave me. If it all ends now, I could not have asked for a better life."
She lay back on the bed, Helga pushing the pillows up beneath her head and closed her eyes as her Creators and parents started to chant. She felt the magic pour through the words, sliding around her mind and lifting her away from the pain coursing through her. Golden warmth surrounded her, its gentle radiance the precursor to the land of dreams and her eyes snapped open. All four of her loves were in tears, the crystalline drops pouring down their faces as they sent their greatest and most loved work away. She squeezed their hands gently and they looked at her.
"Is it done?" Rowena nodded, tear-drops soaking into her robes as they fell endlessly. "Rowena, Salazar...hold me, please." Cerys whispered, her own control cracking at last with her voice. Their arms went around her, holding her tight as they had when she was young and she surrendered herself to sleep. But not before she heard a final, heartfelt promise echo through her mind.
:Child of our dreams, our love for you will never fade. So we all swear. Nostrum amor ero a contego pro totus infinitio . Sleep safe and heal:
-END FLASHBACK-
The emotions from that day shot through her as she remembered. She had no idea as to what had happened after her family had committed her to sleep. That said, she could feel the changes within her. Her old self had been tied to several physical foci, although it had started with one. There was her room itself, that had been the first. Next had been a series of portraits throughout the school that had allowed her to follow her parents around before she managed to manifest. There had been one in each of the common rooms, another in what had been built to be the Headmaster's office and the ceiling of the Great Hall itself had been the final one. With her ability to manifest within her area of control, she was mostly freed from them, but could still access them. Now though it was as if the entirety of Hogwarts had become one huge focus, saturated by her being. It would take an event that levelled her to her foundations to destroy her now, and even that might not do it. She wasn't sure, but the focusing effect seemed to penetrate deep into the ground itself. But that was not the only thing. Her control over the area around her seemed absolutely complete, though untested. She could Feel the ley-lines within the grounds and was quite sure that she could divert their flows as she wished if she bent her mind to it. But more was the fact that she could feel the lines and nodes within her boundaries. And then there was the wealth of knowledge on Gifts that had somehow found its way into her head. She was reasonably certain that it had come from the active scan she had done of the people who had come through the Gate but a part of her wasn't sure. Then again she hadn't had the time to absorb anything beyond the mechanics of Gating.
Unfortunately, there were more pressing issues on her mind. There were Gifted within her walls, but only a tiny portion of them seemed aware of it. That made no sense from what she knew of Gifts, especially as many of them were active. And yet...what she knew of her own world's magic forced her to think awakened Gifts might somehow be subsumed into a witch's magic. It certainly didn't seem impossible and if there was one thing she had learnt as a creature of magic it was that even impossibilities were far more likely then you might think. But even that anomaly wasn't on the top of her list for things confusing her. She was bound to her grounds. When she had fallen asleep her area of control had extended leagues in every direction, almost reaching the Western coastline. Now though, she could not reach beyond her walls. There was a barrier, almost as if someone had tried to bind her and failed. In that case though, it must be a fairly recent development as a binding of the sort of power would break almost instantly when the caster died. And only a wizard in his (or her) prime could have pulled off something that powerful. So that left only a few options and none of them were particularly palatable. The most likely, and most disturbing, possibility was that the headmasters of previous years had done it and passed the binding down to their successors. She couldn't take that as a certainty, as it was possible that either a very powerful student or teacher had tried it in the past hundred years or so. It just wasn't that likely. She wasn't willing to discount it, but the first option was definitely the most likely of the three. So, first things first. Portraits.
Her eyes slid open and she took in the room before her. There was a fully grown phoenix sitting on a perch across from her portrait, his perch surrounded by at least a dozen tiny tables filled with silver instruments. Her eyes flicked over to the headmaster's desk, still unchanged after centuries of use. Portraits of the past Heads were scattered around the room and as her eyes flicked open, several of them gasped. She said nothing, simply surveying the room before her, taking in everything. Her eyes flickered as she pierced the entire room with her Sight. :Well, what do we have here?: She thought, observing the highly enchanted pieces of monitoring equipment and following their connections. :Spying on your charges are we? I don't think so.: She closed her eyes, letting her portrait fall back into sleep and focused on those instruments monitoring people within her walls. Magic swirled into the room, charging the air like static before a lightning storm. Tiny sparks of magic arced onto the instruments before her, their power building towards true strikes. She sensed the gargoyle in front of the stairway move aside and smiled inwardly. The door opened and she unleashed a series of blinding strikes. She heard the current headmaster cry out as the magic seared into his vision, temporarily blinding him with its intensity. Manipulating her magic with practised ease she wove herself into being, positioning her body so that it appeared sitting behind the Head's desk. As the eyes of the elderly man in front of her cleared, he glanced around him, eyes widening as he saw the havoc she had wreaked upon several of his trackers before snapping to his desk as she cleared her throat.
"You are the current Headmaster of Hogwarts, yes?" She asked coolly, layering a compulsion to answer truthfully into her words.
"I...I am." The man stammered, shocked to the core by her appearance.
"Good." She smiled and he paled.
"Who are you and what do you want? As Headmaster of this school I order you to answer me!" She felt his will attempt to break through her barriers and she shook her head slowly, obsidian locks falling around her cheeks.
"My name, little man, is Cerys." The door behind him slammed shut and a multi-layered pattern of warding slammed down around the office. "I want you to break the binding you have upon me."
"I don't know what you're talking about." He responded waspishly.
"Oh really?" She cocked her head and leant forward on the desk, the silver of her eyes meeting his sapphire. "Lets find out if there's any truth to that statement." The air rippled between the two of them and Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts, Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards and Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot collapsed in a boneless heap.
Raising herself from the chair in front of the desk Cerys turned, locking eyes with the portraits around her. "I know the magic of your frames can tell you what I am. Do not fear. I have absorbed the memories of your successor's mind and I know that you are not responsible for the binding upon me." She pointed at the crumpled figure in front of the desk and moved him into the chair in front of the desk, letting his body slump as if merely asleep. "But he will not remember me until I will it and none of you will tell him before then." She raised her hand, silencing their voices before they could speak. "No, you won't. I don't want to but I will make sure you can't if I have to." The past Heads of the school all shrank back in their portraits and paled. "So, do I have you collective word?" She asked softly, releasing the bonds of silence.
"You do." They replied equally softly.
"Thank you. I would not have wanted to bind you so you could not speak of this." She frowned, her mind still assimilating the memories then pointed at two of the tables of instruments. "Those need to go as well." She sighed. Two bolts of light flew from her fingertips, shattering the tables and the instruments that rested upon them. "Your successor is not a trusting man and neither is he to be trusted. Think on that, all of you." And with that, she gathered the magic of her form around her and vanished into the air.
AN: And there we have it. Not as much jumping around as the last one, but at least the same amount of information. Now, just something I need to explain in regards to my views of a) the Founders and b) Hogwarts.
a) The Founders, in my view, were simply a group of rather powerful – I guess the correct term would be enlightened – wizards (and witches – damn JK for the stupid gender separation ^^) who wanted to pass their knowledge on to others. Maybe it was their idea, maybe they were just copying another school, it doesn't really matter. But above everything else, they were still human. I don't like the idea of the Founders being all-powerful god-mages or anything of that ilk. The only thing that made them special was their vision and the fact that they managed to accomplish it. A thousand years on, legends about them make them seem unstoppable and all knowing and – well you get the picture. And one thing I need to make very clear, I'm not doing anything with the Founders in regards to how they paired. Maybe they had partners outside of their little group, maybe they didn't. How Cerys refers to them however, is not a representation of what their relationships were in real life.
b) Hogwarts was the school built by the Founders, but it was also their child. It was a project that probably took a considerable portion of their lifespans to complete and was a dream made manifest. I don't see them leaving something that important without a protector. But of course, there's more to it then that. The basic idea for Cerys (hard c, not soft) is that the Founders gave a part of themselves to create her. She is them at a much deeper and more profound level then any biological child. I mean, they'd all have their reasons for sacrificing what in essence was a part of their soul (don't call me on that soul bit, I'm not discussing it further lest this stray into philosophy and the arguments that stem from such a debate) but she brought them together around her like nothing else could after they had completed their dream. There's a song I once listened to a long time ago that asked "If my wish is granted, what comes after?" Think about that for a moment. They needed a new focus otherwise they'd tear each other apart and they were smart enough to realise this. The reason Cerys refers to Rowena and Salazar as Mother and Father is because they gave the biggest parts of their being to create her. Rowena because she wanted a chance to pass more of herself on then a daughter who had betrayed her and Salazar (at least at first) because he wanted to have at least a part of him live forever (or for so long as to make little difference).
There is though, one more rather important fact. Cerys, in terms of maturity, is somewhere between 16-18 years old (remember she's a been asleep for most of her life). And within her grounds she basically has the power of a god. There's more to it then that, but the rest can wait until I get to a point where it's relevant. Sorry for the massive second authors note.
Thanks, ribbons and cookies all go to ShinjuKoroba for betaing once again.
I hope you liked this chapter and please leave a review for me on the desk as you leave.
Wind to thy wings.