Very long author's note before the chapter gets started: Big ups for the reviews, MakingMarauderMischief and mywildcharmsforyou! Charms, glad you liked that chapter – I had a feeling that was going to be a love/hate one for most people since I decided to jump into the bizarro deep end of time and memories and start making deeper divergences from the conflicts of the original series; happy that worked out for that chapter. Definitely won't be the last time something weird happens at Hogwarts, haha.
MMM – Glad you're enjoying the story! I know it's easy to lose some readers on long journeys like this, but it's good to see those who like all the little detail and building that goes into a story this size with multiple books planned out. Really glad you like Lily: I wanted a protagonist fit for the situation at hand, one where she needed room to grow and the brains to learn and understand all the crazy stuff thrown her way. Ravenclaw was the right fit as I pushed Lily to be just as much a scientist and investigator as witch in that she searches for answers and truth to problems, magical problems included, even when she has no idea how to fight them – something that sets her apart from her father, who was much more magically powerful but tended to rush to judgment (see Chamber of Secrets.) Hence why Lily's good at subjects like Herbology and Potions, one that require more hands-on learning and step-by-step problem-solving rather than just wand-waving.
Regarding Scorpius, romance is going to be complicated in this story (surprise), but suffice to say, he has a major, major part to play, both for his own last name and in regards to his future with Lily. As for Rose, she and he are not good. Not sure how a ton of people have pushed Rose, but I'm pointing her as taking after her father – which means she and Scorpius have zero future together. She has her own parts to play like all of Lily's family, but she's more involved with James and Al (and much later down the road, at that.)
If you'd like a short intro/reminder on a couple of the main characters (fitting, since I've introduced, oh, a hundred or more of them by this point):
If you want an actor close to Jurre Vos, take Tom Hardy from the film Warrior, age him twenty years, give him some scars and rugged features and a South African accent, and you're golden. He's a hulking, brutish sort of dude who's running from his past (spoiler for this chapter…sorta) Sion is largely his counter, a man who seeks validation for a past that's as empty as his own heart (Daddy issues 101). He's not big or strong like Vos, but thin, lanky, and quick, treating magic as a weapon to wield and an art form – hence his use of a staff rather than a wand, and his fighting style as more of a dance than a duel. He's much more of an experimenter with strange and arcane magic. That's largely the point behind him; he's the heir (or the scion – hence how I got the name) of a man (Genseric) who practices a magical form that's been hidden for ages. As for his likeness...he's heavily based on Roy Batty from Blade Runner, so actor Rutger Hauer from the 1980s is a good place to start. The third part of their trio, Alanis, is the most traditionally recognizable magician of the group. She's motivated by a Ministry that fell to pieces during Voldemort's second rise, and armed with all sorts of knowledge, she's out to make a difference. Whether that's good or not, well, read on. Looking for an actress to play the part; Eva Green would be a dead fit.
If you're more interested in the kids, Lily…red hair, yeah, cross Sophie Turner and Rose Leslie and I wager you're on track for what she looks like. I figured she inherited Ginny's strong jaw. It's a powerful physical trait. I took a lot of influences from Jon Snow in Game of Thrones to create Logan, so Kit Harington is a good actor to base him around. Natalie and Wayne, the other two in my gang of four, are more people I drummed up in my head; go nuts with your imagination for them. There's a huge reveal regarding characterizing the gang of four (+ Scorp and Hugo) later in this book, so I won't spoil anything.
In this chapter, we finally see what digs at the heart of Jurre Vos, and Lily continues to play Hermione's informant as the winter holidays loom…
The black tentacle stopped in mid-slither in front of Lily and curled back around. Another one followed, slapping the ground with a wet thunk, and then came a dinner plate eye, gelatinous and oozing like a squid's, transfixed on Lily.
"Ah!"
She keeled over, clutching her head as color, images, and sounds foreign and familiar exploded in her mind. Lily stumbled back onto her rear, clawing at her forehead and squeezing her eyes as tight as she could. Through the din of a thousand voices all shouting in her head at once, she could hear Vos's octopus with a hundred eyes rounding the corner of the hallway and advancing. All she knew was that she couldn't open her eyes now – she could see all of that thing's eyes staring back at her.
"Lily? The fook?"
A rough hand grabbed her by the shoulder and hurled her down the hall to her right. Whap! Pain exploded through her ribs as she hit a loose pile of cobblestone, and finally Lily opened her eyes just enough to let in the tiniest window of light. Professor Vos stood out in the corridor intersection, his head turned away, his eyes shut tight as he held his wand aloft. A slimy arm slapped the ground next to him, its tip poking at Vos's shoes as something huge, bright, and white erupted out of the end of his wand. Lily thought it a glowing bison or buffalo or something at first in her blurry state, but as her head cleared, she realized what he'd fired, a piece of magic she didn't expect to learn for quite some time – a Patronus.
The tentacle slid away from Vos's foot, swatting at the Patronus as if offered some interesting, evasive new snack before disappearing behind the intersection entirely. Vos dashed up to Lily as she tried to stand, stumbling and falling down again. Her head ached from the nameless man – Bacchus – dumping her out of the otherworldly – othertimely – Hogwarts right down into the bowels of the castle in front of that monster, not to mention throbbing from the ordeal of traveling through a place where time didn't act at all how she understood it to act.
"The hell are you doing down here?" Vos shouted, grabbing Lily by arm and forcing her against the wall. "The Headmaster and I threw up enough defenses around this place after your first year to stop Voldemort reincarnated, let alone a student! And do you even know what time it is?"
Lily shut her eyes again and shook her head. Her story was pure insanity, even to someone like Professor Vos, who knew his fair share of crazy occurrences. Sorry, professor, I took an evening stroll and decided to chase after a smoke monster, only to jump straight out of time itself! My bad. If Bacchus was watching this, he was probably laughing his head off at the "interesting" predicament he'd put Lily in.
Vos pressed his finger to Lily's neck, feeling her rapid, weak pulse, and then pulled her away. "Can you walk?"
She grimaced and nodded, but stumbled in her first few steps, her balance off, her head still tumbling over and over from taking Vos's beast's mind-zapping at point-blank range. Vos shot a look down the dark hall, picked Lily up in his arms, and said, "I'm taking you up. Stay quiet. Before I get to the hospital wing, though, I want a word."
Lily let her head droop against his powerful shoulder as he carried her up the creaky stone lift she'd last descended with him, Logan, Sion, and the wendigo eighteen months prior. Her eyes sank as Vos waved his wand at wavering piles of rubble and walls of quivering, empty air, clearing out magical defenses as he carried her up. Torchlight glowed in Lily's eyes as they hurried. She wanted nothing more than to sleep off this horrible night, forget even following after the phantasm in the first place, forget the nightmares that had plagued her this term, nothing but return to Ravenclaw Tower and go back to thinking about Quidditch and how not to fail in Charms.
But that's not true, a little voice snickered in the back of her mind. That's not true at all. You've been given a taste and now you want to know more. Quidditch and Charms can't satisfy you for long.
Vos carried her to a gold-inlaid wooden door on the ground floor of the castle, a stone gargoyle flanking each side. He looked each way down the hall before throwing his elbow into the door, knocking it open to reveal an empty room full of mismatched, dark wooden furniture – an old wardrobe here, pine, oak, and mahogany chairs there. Vos deposited Lily in a chair next to a glowing fireplace and whipped his wand at the end table beside her. A white, ceramic mug full of steaming brown drink popped up at his command.
"It's hot chocolate. Drink it," he said, taking another look out the door before closing it and waving his wand again. "Don't want to be overheard. I've a feeling you didn't take a leisurely, rule-breaking stroll at one A.M., but other teachers might not be in a listening mood at this hour. Drink. And tell me how you dropped in front of my prized pet out of thin air."
Lily sniffed and clutched her mug. "There's something here at Hogwarts," she whispered, staring straight down into her hot chocolate, concentrating on nothing but the ripples her breath made on the brown surface. "Something prowling around in the castle."
"Something like what?"
She couldn't hold it all in. Bit by bit the night's events bubbled up out of Lily, from detention to pursuing the phantasm to a Hogwarts locked out of time itself. The only thing she hid was Bacchus – her guide, puppet master, entertained audience, whatever he was, she figured he'd come down harshly on her if she spilled their secret rendezvous. Instead she told Vos she'd fled the phantasm in the timeless realm, stumbling across another portal by chance and ending up deep underground.
To his credit Vos listened with nary a word the whole time, nodding here and there, conjuring up a cup of coffee and taking quiet sips, glancing up at Lily's eyes and pressing his fingers together at more dramatic parts. When she'd finally tired herself out and tears of exhaustion threatened to tear free from her eyes, at last he said, "I know the creature. It's Sion's, another pet in his zoo of monsters. It's the same one Alanis used to corral Antonin Dolohov and two other Death Eaters almost twenty years ago."
"What?" Lily gasped.
Vos rubbed his eyes, took a drink of coffee, and said, "Look, let's use a metaphor for what we're facing here. Voldemort, he was a villain of the heart. He killed your father's parents, he feared death, he was as pure evil as evil comes. He fought conventionally, wand magic against wand magic, love triumphing over hate. Classic story. That is not what this is. Genseric and Sion are men with no hearts, or if they have them, their hearts are stone and ice. They don't fear death, and they experiment with magic in ways Voldemort never did – not with life and death and love everything that made the history books, but with space and time and ontology and things non-magical scientists and philosophers have dived into for millennia. For someone like an Antonin Dolohov, this type of magic was wholly unknown. We trapped him in Germany, lured him into a fight by destroying the camp he was using as a hideout, and when he stepped into a vortex Genseric had pulled out of time, he was totally unprepared to fight us. We crushed him, and that is the reason why you need to stop pursuing these kind of things, Lily."
"Stop?" Lily said. "I'm not afraid of…well, I'm only a little afraid…of dying, professor! I can fight!"
"No, you can't, and you're not listening. You're not facing off something that sees death as scary at all, Lily. Antonin Dolohov today, the Dolohov that hit Godric's Hollow and Durmstrang, is so far beyond death that he'd beg for it on his knees if given the option. Unfortunately for him, he no longer has a voice to beg with. That is what the Headmaster, who knows all this after I told him, and I are trying to protect you all from. The phantasm – it's Sion's spy, we can put up safeguards against it – isn't so much a threat. But if something else is up, that is. I don't want you getting hurt going out of the way to uncover secrets that should be buried."
Lily felt angry. She didn't know why – it was a kind gesture on Vos's part – but fury rose in her at his dismissal of her intention to find out more about the phantasm and what Sion and Genseric wanted. "Why? I'm just your student."
"No, I'm saying it because you're not just my student!" Vos yelled, standing now, his face darkening before the fire. "I've lived a shite life, Lily, one where everyone I've cared about has died or turned their back on me. My father. My mother. My friends from the nineties when I left the magical world and fought wars with the Foreign Legion in Bosnia and with companies in Sierra Leone and Ethiopia. Sion. Genseric. Alanis. All of them left me in one way or another. My whole fookin' home country is a footnote in history! I have accomplished nothing and made no impact on this planet! Everything up in past has gone up in flames to the point where I've seriously considered in the past pointing my wand at my temple and shouting Avada Fookin' Kedavra. Everything until I came to Hogwarts, alone and embittered, and found out that it's a joy to teach. And now, when I have children to teach and colleagues to call friends, I am not going to allow a bunch of monsters to come in here and take that away from me!"
He clenched his fists and turned away from Lily, hurricanes swirling across his face. She shrank into her chair. All she'd wanted was answers, some sort of explanation, and instead she'd received Vos dumping almost fifty years of a stormy life on her. It was a sobering thought: I have Mum and Dad and Al and James and my family and friends. Professor Vos has…me and Logan and everyone who takes Astronomy? She couldn't imagine living such a long life like that, or even having the motivation to keep going if she did.
If someone came along and threatened to take away Nat and Al and Dad…I guess I'd react the same way. Especially because all three of them would want to fight, too.
"'m sorry," Vos murmured, still staring at the fire, his arm pressed into the stone fireplace above it. His shadow danced in the flickering flames, pirouetting in a tight, fanciful dance one moment, twisting into a ghoulish, wispy demon the next. "You're a kid, you shouldn't have to hear this shite or get caught up in this. World's too cold and uncaring as it is. You're the one who had a rough night, not me."
Lily wanted to say something. The air had gone out of her Astronomy professor. Despite what Bacchus had warned her about on the train, and despite the many questions she still had about Vos's past, she saw him more and more as her mentor here at Hogwarts – a different role from the one her Mum and Dad played, not a guide of the heart or of family and love, but one of thought and mind and capability. Here was a man who had the strength to show his colors in front of his student at the end of the day, someone he'd known for barely more than two years, even after the whole world had turned on him. Her father had the courage to standing up to Voldemort and emerging as a hero to the wizarding world – and for being a good father. Vos had a different sort of courage, the kind of strength to face ashes and despair and to shoulder it while plowing on.
"Don't worry about the phantasm," Vos said quietly. "Maribor and I will make sure we make it a lot harder for it to keep prowling around for whatever Sion and Genseric are after. I'm happy you told me. As much as I criticize, you make me proud of facing up to something far beyond your age and abilities. Now come on. Hospital wing."
Lily didn't want to go back to that place where she had so many bad memories from her first year, but the ward was a different place now that Healer Justman had left. The new Healer, none other than Professor Longbottom's wife, Hannah, was a kind, if demanding, woman – drink your potion, no exceptions, Ms. Potter. Another one in the morning. She left the curtains around her bed open, what with the ward empty except for her, and when Lily awoke to the morning sun creeping in through the window, she felt actually refreshed. It's almost as if a Healer is trying to heal me. Shocking!
She didn't spill everything to her friends, even Logan – she only told them she'd had a run-in with the phantasm, letting them in on the shadowy demon that had infiltrated Hogwarts sight unseen.
"Clearly someone brought it in," Natalie deduced as soon as the story had left Lily's lips. "We should go investigate. Someone's guilty."
Logan was less convinced. "Nat, since Lily's the one who's had experience here, maybe we let her make the decisions?"
Lily was grateful for his intervention. The last thing she needed was Natalie leading her friends off on some wild goose chase that would get them all caught up on this dark road. Yet as much as she wanted to heed Vos's advice, she couldn't help but yearn to head after the phantasm again. Even if the Headmaster and Vos were aware of it and had set up defenses, how did they know it couldn't come back? It had access to all of Hogwarts – all of it – and as far as she knew, only she had seen what it was capable of in full.
Hannah Longbottom let her out of the ward in a day, and the rest of the term passed by in the blink of an eye: Quidditch practices, the first visit to Hogsmeade as a third year, and Gryffindor pounding Hufflepuff to the tune of four hundred-thirty to two-hundred broke up the rush of classes. Defense Against the Dark Arts intensified, and while Lily felt like she still trailed class leaders like Evie and Natalie, she was getting the hang of spells such as the Shield Charm and Stunning Spell. Progress, if nothing more.
"All of you are going home for the holidays?" Natalie wailed in Herbology a week before the end of the term. An angry, white-leafed, vine-covered plant wriggled and wrestled with her as she struggled to keep it under control. "You're just going to leave me here all by myself for…three weeks?"
"Trent's not. Neither's Marie. So two people in our house and our year," said Wayne, tried to pluck a leaf but earning a smack from the plant's vines for his efforts. "Have fun with their company. Trent's a cool guy."
Natalie huffed, "Yeah, but it's not really the same. Should I be trying to squirt this plant's goo at McLaggen while I have the chance, then? I mean, this is our last Herbology class until January."
Lily wanted to ask the omnipresent question around her best friend – Nat, why don't you want to go home? What's going on? – but before she could prompt her, the plant vomited a stream of black gunk in her face when she went to pluck a leaf. Revolted, Lily grabbed a towel and wiped the mucous off of her goggles and cheeks.
"Working hard!" said Neville as he rounded their table. "Yeah, the Sapoliads tend to spit, Lily. Watch out for that. That's what safety equipment's for."
Way to tell me after the fact, professor.
She was still rubbing her face as she and her friends walked up the grounds towards the castle at the end of class. The sun had already gone down as they stepped into the Entrance Hall, the last vestiges of orange and red glowing along the western horizon. Hogwarts was picturesque at the end of autumn, the trees having lost their leaves, snow covering the Scottish hills all around the castle, even the chilly wind that made Lily clutch her winter robes tighter around her and huddle closer to Logan and Wayne to keep the wind out.
The end of the term also brought other unpleasant surprises, however.
Professor Yaro stood with his arms crossed and his face contorted into a scowl in the Entrance Hall, facing off with Declan Stennis. The Ministry official held out a clipboard, scrawling on it with a quill while in the middle of saying, "I've never known Durmstrang for being particularly adherent to Transfiguration, Mister Yaro -= their focus has long been on active magic less suited for everyday use. Advanced defensive spells and dueling, fairly impractical things for a more peaceful age, no? No Voldemort lurking the countryside today. Just terrorists in Godric's Hollow. How much exactly is John paying you?"
"Gentlemen don't discuss salaries," Yaro sneered. "Take it up with the Headmaster if you are so inclined. I am not beholden to you, tax man. This is not my country. Gringotts does not have my allegiance. I am here to teach. The only Galleons I count are the ones on my tab at Rosmerta's."
Yaro flipped a rude gesture in Stennis's face and stormed up the stairs. The Ministry chief looked amused before he spotted Lily, breaking out into a feigned smile and saying, "Ms. Potter, returning from class, I presume? Too eager to get to supper, or do you have time for a humble man?"
Humble my arse. She wished she could say that, but she knew better. "Plenty of time," she said, waving Natalie away before she could start with some crazy idea. "Is something the matter?"
"No, nothing wrong," Stennis said, urging her down an adjacent corridor. Portraits galore stared down at them, pictures of knights in shining armor and witches casting powerful spells and hunting dogs chasing foxes and much more. One in particular caught Lily's eye, a beautiful pastel picture of the sea crashing against the White Cliffs of Dover, the ocean so vivid and blue it almost came off of the painting. "But I question some of the financial decisions of Hogwarts and its Headmaster. All these paintings, for instance – who really views them? Or some of the staff, many of whom I believe could be replaced for half their salary. There are many wizards and witches in Britain competent enough to take jobs like the one filled by that Linas Yaro. A Durmstrang man when Durmstrang has been in the news so much lately, it makes me question, no?"
Lily smiled. Git. It was a good entry point to probe him for information, however. "I guess it's more about if Hogwarts is safe or not. After what happened a year and a half ago, maybe the Ministry knows a way to keep Hogwarts safer?"
"Oh, plenty of ways. I think keeping the school in British hands would be a good start. These foreign professors, a liability of I ever saw them. Imagine Aurors teaching all your subjects. What you could learn! Michael Corner coming to teach was a good start, but envision someone like your father both instructing and safeguarding Hogwarts's student body!"
That is a shite idea. "That's an inspired idea. Didn't you say you had a friend in the German Ministry? How do they do it?"
Stennis plastered on a smile and fingered his gaudy sun pendant. It glowed in his fingers, wobbling just a bit before relaxing when he let it go. Something about it felt odd to Lily, almost as if she felt warm just by looking at it. "Oh, it is different over there. In Germany, they send most of their children to Durmstrang, Beauxbatons in France, or Rubroflos in Tuscany. No domestic school and national pride like we have here, no? Hogwarts is a national treasure, best we keep it that way. Tell me, what does your father think about having such lax attitude towards letting in wizards from elsewhere? I would think it is a lapse in security if nothing else, and I know the Minister feels the same. In Britain we can keep an eye on her people, but from outside…well, we cannot watch who we have no jurisdiction over, no?"
Lily faked a smile. Her defenses were falling, and much more with this man would lead her to saying something she would regret. "I think Dad just wants to keep people safe and stop dark wizards before they show up. That's why he's an Auror."
"Ah, interests aligned," Stennis said. "He should talk more with your aunt, that Ms. Weasley, Hermione is her name. She has been quite disruptive, too much idealism, I think. I have not spoken with her children here, your cousins, but perhaps it is better I do not. At least Harry Potter has taught his children well. I wager you have a fine career ahead in the Ministry should you want it."
Yeah? I bet Hermione would love to hear your opinions. "It'd be an honor," Lily said. "If you could throw in a good word, I'd love to get to know more about what I could do for the Ministry." And what it could tell me.
There was one thing Lily disagreed with Professor Vos about: Alanis Fell's criticisms of the Ministry seemed more pertinent each time she talked with Stennis. After the attack on Godric's Hollow, Lily wondered if that woman had the right idea after all.