Chapter 11

A Victory

Ella hovered over the clearing, which glowed with a pure bluish light so bright that she could scarcely see the shadowy outlines of the creatures flitting between the close-packed trees. She dropped down slightly, peering into the shadows until her eyes became accustomed to the glare, aware that her husband and daughter were also making their descent behind her.

There were centaurs there, ringing the clearing like sentinels, and a knot of fear tightened in her stomach. She cast about for some sign of Firenze, but could not make him out. Steeling her nerve, she descended until her feet touched the springy turf and then turned in a slow circle to take in all of those who had gathered. Snape landed beside her and let Persephone down from his broom, keeping his arm around her waist even as Ella's went protectively round her shoulder.

No one spoke, the humans too wary and the centaurs too calculating. Each one had turned his penetrating, otherworldly gaze on the girl in the middle of the clearing, the interloper. Finally, they spoke.

"She is here…"

"And so is he…

"What do we care?"

"Care we must..."

"He shall devour…"

"If we do not allow this…"

"To expend such purity on one such as he…"

"Yet one such as she, born of redemption, is pure in her way…"

"Tainted now…"
"But not beyond redemption herself." These last words were spoken as Firenze entered the clearing. His hoof pawed the ground angrily as he raised his melodic voice and cried to the heavens, "For is it not written in the moon and the stars that the final ending to the discordant song of a monstrous life was not final, and a sweet coda must be appended here tonight?"

"Then proceed we must," replied a gruff voice, and through murmurs of grudging assent the unicorns emerged. Centaurs shifted to grant them access to the circle and the clearing glowed brighter than bright, Snape and Ella shielding their eyes as much from the wonder of it as from its intensity. Only Persephone seemed unaffected, standing proud and tall and shaking off her parents' protection. Ella glanced at her worriedly, fearful that the blue light would take on a sickening reddish tinge, but then she saw tears falling from her daughter's eyes and she knew that Voldemort hid deeply within her at that moment, perhaps biding his time, perhaps weakened by the waves of pure, white magic emanating from the beautiful creatures that looked so sorrowful and yet so assured.

There were five unicorns. Ella could hardly breathe, enveloped as she was in wonder. She reached out blindly for her husband's hand and, as she found it, he grasped her tightly and she knew in that moment that they were as one, always had been and would be again. His strength comforted and calmed her and she waited, suspended in time while the air all around them seemed to shimmer and eddy with possibilities. It was a living, sentient thing, an essence of power distilled deep within the secretive forest and now released here, and she trusted in its beneficence. For the first time since Persephone's abduction, Ella allowed herself to hope.

XXX

Persephone Snape. Tom Riddle. Lord Voldemort. Persephone Snape. Seething, roiling blood, bubbling beneath her conscious mind now, wheedling and twisting, promising power and glory and dread delight. Over it all, banking down the flames and blanketing it with cooling snow, white and perfect, the crystalline marvel of pure, innocent strength, calming and soothing…and melting away as foulness reasserted itself, rising up and breaking through her mental barriers, laughing its high, shrill laugh, forcing her head back and her throat to tighten in an eldritch shriek,

"Did you think me so weak? Did you defy me even in that?"

The girl that was not Persephone flung herself forward with a growl, long thin arms growing preternaturally longer as she reached out, bones cracking and sinews stretching as Ella and Snape sprang forward to grasp at her, pulling her back from the closest unicorn, which had reared back in fright.

"Persephone, no!" Ella cried, but Snape said,

"It is not Persephone!" as he turned the snarling girl to face him, her eyes glowing red in her white face, her mouth a mere slit with bloodless lips.

"Stop!" sounded a stentorian voice from the shadows. "Let us end it here!"

The gathered centaurs pawed the ground in assent. "End it!"

XXX

Backing up against her daughter and husband as they stood locked in time, and trying to protect them from what she perceived as the centaurs' intent, Ella was terrified. Centaurs had never been friends of men, living alongside them out of necessity but always at a distance. Firenze was but one centaur, and she could not expect his protection when he was outnumbered twenty-fold. Despite their vague prophesies and the hopefulness she had felt at hearing them, all she could foresee now was the sound of skulls splitting as she and her loved ones were trampled to death beneath those formidable hooves. Never mind her self-centred interpretation of their earlier words; they meant to kill her daughter, and she and her husband would surely perish in their attempts to save her.

Defiance withered and died locked in her throat, though, as fear silenced her. The stampede never came; the centaurs merely advanced into the circle a little more, shepherding in the timid unicorns and thus drawing in with them the light and concentrating it still further.

Ella's breathing slowed a little and she swallowed, watching the unicorns nervously. The largest caught her eye, and at once she recognised it as the one whose blood she had taken eleven years before, for the poultice that had healed her husband. There was such knowledge in those still, dark eyes, and she gazed into their depths once more as she had done so long ago. Such wisdom, such purity and understanding that Ella began to weep silently without even realising it.

After a while, the unicorn snickered slightly, its warm breath steaming the cool blue air and gently breaking the link between them with its gauzelike substanceless curtain. It moved to one side, the smallest of the unicorns coming forward to take its place.

"Take the bowl, Ella," said Firenze softly. "It is time, for the stars stud the heavens and the girl child has been drenched long enough in her pain."

Ella took the shallow bowl that hovered before her, and held it out to the smallest unicorn. It lowered its head in assent and presented its flank to her, pressing against the side of the bowl. Ella dared not move as the air grew heavy around her. The forest was holding its breath, and she knew that when it released it once more, the world would be changed forever. She closed her eyes, feeling understanding and rightness flood through her as the unicorn's flank bled into her bowl, sharing its life essence to save her daughter, itself and all of its kind.

The pressure against the bowl lifted and she sensed the unicorn move away. Opening her eyes, Ella watched as the wound in its side closed and healed away, leaving no sign of its sacrifice and its boon. The bowl was far from full, but unicorn blood was the most potent magic known to man, and she knew that if Persephone was to be healed, then what she held before her would suffice.

She turned to her husband and daughter and held out the bowl. "She needs to drink it, Severus."

"Are you sure? Must it be prepared in some way?"

"Yes. And no…she must drink it in its purest form, as it has been offered."

Persephone shrank from her mother, shaking her head.

"No, I can't! It's blood, mum! I can't drink that!"

Ella almost sagged with relief. If her daughter was being wilful and refusing the blood out of squeamishness, their job would be so much easier. If she had been in Voldemort's thrall at that moment, she would probably have relished drinking from the bowl, absorbing its magic and corrupting it for his own purpose, incurring the anger of the centaurs with all of the repercussions that would entail.

No. Persephone would take her medicine at once. As her mother, Ella would insist on it.

"You will take this, Seffie, and you will drink every last drop. You know very well what will happen if you don't."

"Mum!"

"Listen to her, Persephone," insisted her father. "You must do this."

XXXXX

Persephone looked at the centaurs that set a silent cordon around the glade. Their faces were impassive enough, but she could tell that they were judging her. She shivered, and looked between her parents. They were implacable, that much was obvious. For a wild, giddy moment she was reminded of the day they had been called to Hogsmeade School to see Miss Lovegood. They had made her apologise for the hinkypunk incident in front of the whole school, and even though she had been mortified she had still wanted to laugh. She knew that if she laughed now it would come out as a sob, and she felt too afraid of the strange forest creatures to make any sort of sound at all.

There was also the incontrovertible proof that they were right. She had to drink the blood, because it was the only way she could rid herself of the diseased presence that kept tightening its death grip on her soul. Moreover, she had to do it now, while the bright, pure magic generated in the glade kept that presence cowed and in retreat. If it asserted itself now, she would be powerless to resist it

It could offer her so much…

She clamped down on that thought and stepped forward decisively, opening her mouth to affirm that she would do as they asked. No words came, and her hands were trembling, but she held them out to take the bowl from her mother, meeting her concerned gaze with her own fearful one.

It was warm, and there were still bubbles in it. Celsus would love this, she thought sardonically. He would be jumping up and down at her side, exclaiming in that childish voice of his, poking his finger into the bowl to see what it felt like. Anguish lanced through her as she remembered all that she had done to him of late, and she resolved to tell him how sorry she was. Suddenly determined, she brought the bowl to her lips and drank it down in draught after draught of deep gulps, screwing shut her eyes as if the lack of one sense would somehow dull the rest; the coppery taste, the sickly-sweet smell and the sound of her own life-blood pounding and screaming through her ears.

At last it was done, and she dropped the bowl as she fell into a swoon.

When she awoke, her parents were crouched at her side and it was dark. They were alone. She was alone, too; there was no-one else inside her.

"Mummy, Daddy? Am I okay?"

"Yes, love, you're fine now," her mother said, a sob catching in her throat. Her father let out a breath that he must have been holding for some time, because it was ragged and loud in the stillness that surrounded them.

"What happened? After I'd…gods, that was so gross."

Snape sat down on the grass beside her. "Well, I have certainly never experienced its like before…nor am I likely to again, if the Fates are kind!"

"What's that supposed to mean?" Persephone asked, sitting up and settling back into her mother's embrace.

"It means that the magic here tonight has been - successful?" He looked across at Ella enquiringly and she nodded, her face breaking into a wide smile.

"I can feel that he's gone. It's like…like when you come out of the bathroom after a really hot bath, and you're all glowing and wrapped up in soft towels. Do you know what I mean?" she asked.

"Yes, we know," Snape murmured, remembering his wedding night when Ella had used all the magic at her disposal, including that of the phoenix and the unicorn, to expunge his Dark Mark. "After you had drunk the gift, you fainted," he continued carefully, "which was probably for the best…because the expulsion of the canker in your body was somewhat traumatic."

"I don't remember much," she confessed. "I remember shaking hard, and then it was as if my skin was turning itself inside out! It didn't, did it?"

"No, Seffie, it didn't," Ella said, "But you did begin to shake and fit, and we watched as you – well, there was some red smoke, it rose off you and the light in the glade just consumed it, and there was a shrill wailing as he – it – left you."

Persephone shivered, and her father removed his cloak and reached over to wrap it around her shoulders. "Come on," he said firmly, getting to his feet. "The forest is no place to linger at night. We must take you home."

"Have they all gone now?" she asked. "The centaurs, and the unicorns?"

"As soon as they were satisfied that the evil had been banished, they left, but that doesn't mean they now owe us their protection. They are the most enigmatic of creatures and generally refuse to interfere in the ways of men. We cannot count on their intervention in future, if it has no bearing on their own interests."

"And besides," said Ella in an attempt to lighten the sombre mood, "there's someone waiting to see you back at home."

Persephone hung her head. "I was horrid to Celsus, wasn't I?"

"No more than you have always been," replied her father dryly, straddling his broom and lifting her easily in front of him.