Chapter 36
Helena
Harry watched Draco do a victory lap around the Quidditch pitch and smiled to himself. It was a beautiful, yet cold winter day and he was sitting in the tribunes watching the game between the Slytherins and the Ravenclaws. The victorious team would play against the Gryffindors the following day in a decisive match to set out the winner of this year's Hogwarts Quidditch cup.
If Harry was honest with himself, he would have to admit that Malfoy's race to catch the Snitch had been impressive. Both he and Roger Davis of the Ravenclaws had engaged into a dangerous duel to get the tiny golden devil, one that had them almost smashing into the ground. Davis had pulled up a few moments before a possible accident could have happened and had flown away cursing, leaving a grinning Draco to catch it and pull up at the last moment.
As the game ended with the Slytherins' victory, Draco flew towards the red and golden clad Gryffindor tribune and made a challenging gesture to Harry, who smirked in turn.
"Looking forward to our match, Malfoy," he yelled. Draco's face brightened and he flew away towards the Ravenclaw tribune where some girls were waving to him desperately.
"He's gotten really good, the arrogant bastard," Ron commented, growing red in the face. Ginny, who was sitting near her brother, did not comment, but stared after Draco, an inscrutable expression on her face.
Harry nodded lightly, rather looking forward to competing against a worthy adversary. He was only mildly surprised to see all the progress that the Slytherin prince had achieved since their last game. It seemed like only yesterday when Harry had been playing against him, the day Liliana had arrived at Hogwarts. At the time, Harry was sure Draco would never prove to be as talented at Quidditch as Harry himself was. And still, Draco's new found confidence had proved him wrong. He wondered again how much of his confidence was due to the person who was still up in the air, despite the match having finished.
Harry raised his gaze towards the blue sky, eyeing the lithe silhouette of the Slytherin girl on her broom. All throughout the game she had seemed to be looking out for some kind of imminent danger. She had circled the pitch more than once, anxiously surveying the surroundings. Harry thought that even now, perched on her broom, she seemed to be some kind of guardian, ready to intervene if necessary. He wondered what could have caused this reaction from her. Had she grown attached of the other Hogwarts students? Did she really think they were in actual danger?
She finally descended towards the ground, joining the rest of her team. Harry sighed and turned to Ginny and Ron.
"I have to go."
"I thought we were supposed to practice for tomorrow," Ron said.
"You go ahead and practice, I have something to do." Ron rolled his eyes at his best friend's answer. It was obvious that Harry had been spending a lot less time with him and Hermione than he used to. Ron was also sure he was hiding things from them and he did not like his new-found friendship with Malfoy at all. He was silently wondering where this whole situation would bring them eventually. The only good part about it was that Ron had managed to spend a lot more time with Hermione, just the two of them.
Harry descended from the Gryffindor tribune together with Ginny and followed the Slytherin team, who was heading toward the castle, cheering.
A few minutes later, he was surprised to find Malfoy waiting in front of the Fat Lady painting. He was still wearing his Quidditch attire and looked a little nervous.
"What's up, Malfoy?" he inquired, somewhat taken aback when Draco's eyes flickered from him to Ginny who pushed past the two of them, trying to enter the Common Room, when Malfoy suddenly grabbed her arm.
"Wait, Weaselette, we need to talk."
"Stop harassing me, Malfoy," Ginny said, annoyed, wrenching her arm and pushing him rather forcefully in the chest when Draco tried to close the distance between them again.
Harry decided that this had nothing to do with him and walked into the Common Room without any second thoughts despite Ginny's annoyance. He had to retrieve his Cloak of Invisibility and meet Liliana in the next ten minutes in the Great Hall as he had promised to do.
A short while later, as he stepped out of the Common Room, Ginny and Draco continued to argue angrily. Shaking his head in amusement, he put his cloak around him.
"Give the man a chance to explain, Ginny," he said, before taking down the stairs. As Ginny went suddenly quiet, Draco scowled, disliking Harry's influence on his girlfriend, even now when she had seemingly stopped fancying the Gryffindor golden boy.
"So are you going to be reasonable about this?" he asked, crossing his arms.
"This is me being reasonable, Malfoy," she replied. "Otherwise I would have cursed you minutes ago."
A group of Gryffindors walked by, some of them making catcalls, amused at the unusual visitor.
"So this is it?" Draco drawled.
Ginny said nothing, just stared at him defiantly.
"Very well. Don't expect me to waste any of my precious time trying to make you see reason," he added. Turning on his heels, he left a raging Ginny behind.
None of them noticed the hooded figure of professor Snape partially hidden behind a statue. As he witnessed the so familiar scene in front of him, his sallow features bore sadness which no one apart Dumbledore had seen. When Draco disappeared from sight and Ginny finally entered the common room, Severus finally moved away as well. He had been keeping an eye on Harry over the past few days at Dumbledore's request. The worst was still to come and Severus was not sure he could bear it. Not after he had been watching over his love's son for the past six years.
Harry smiled when he saw Liliana waiting for him in the middle of the Entrance hall, blatantly ignoring the curious looks that the other students were giving her as they passed by. He walked carefully behind the girl, still hidden under his cloak.
When he was barely two meters away from her, Liliana turned in his direction, her hands in her pockets, and her brow furrowed.
"Damn," Harry said under his breath. "Is there no way to surprise you?"
Liliana shrugged.
"Do you really need that? I mean, it's still before curfew."
Harry let the silky material fall around her.
"Too many questions, Karkaroff. Let's go."
They climbed silently and clumsily the stairs to the Ravenclaw tower.
"She's here," Harry pointed to a round wooden door. "They have a small private library hidden here, so Luna told me. At this time, they should all be preparing for dinner, therefore she should be alone."
He opened the door quietly and stepped in, shrugging off his cloak, Liliana following closely in his footsteps.
Harry was right, she noted as she walked behind him into a small room packed with books all around and a few armchairs. The room was empty, with one notable exception.
Helena Ravenclaw sat in an armchair, looking out through the window. She had long, wavy hair and was wearing what looked like a heavy blue dress. When she heard them come in, she looked up, startled.
"Who are you?" she asked wearily.
Harry thought this was rather strange, but he remembered having been told that the ghost was particularly shy.
"We are Luna's friends," he clarified. "We just want to have a word with you."
She nodded, her eyes still weary.
"Luna told me you might call soon," she said, her eyes briefly flickering in Liliana's direction. "How can I help you, Harry Potter?"
"You know me?" Harry babbled, surprised as always that everyone knew who he was.
"Of course I know you," she said hauntingly. "Even in the ghost realm you are famous. Not to mention that I have seen you wandering these corridors for the past six years..."
"Of course..." he muttered, throwing Liliana a glance. "We are here about your mother's diadem."
"I should have known!" the ghost burst out irritably, getting up from the armchair and already floating towards the nearest wall.
"WAIT!" Harry cried before she could leave the room. "This is not about me getting better grades. It's about defeating Voldemort."
The Grey Lady partially turned around, floating mid-air, her long, wavy hair bouncing around her waist. Somehow the imagine reminded Liliana of her mother, Lilah, the way she had seen her in the picture Gellert had given her.
She ignored the thought and focused on the ghost in front of her. The information she had was vital to their plans.
The Grey Lady seemed to hesitate:
"I did have it in my possession. A long time ago," she said.
When Harry frowned slightly, looking forward to some more bits of explanation, she added: "I stole it from my mother and ran away with it."
"What happened? What did you do with it?" Liliana asked impatiently.
The ghost's irritation seemed to return, and Harry squeezed Liliana's hand, to signal that he was best suited to deal with the issue at hand.
"I'm sorry," he said. "You don't have it anymore?"
The ghost sighed. "No, I went as far as Albania and hid it in a forest, inside a hollow tree.
"You don't understand...," she continued under Harry's disbelieving stare. "I was so jealous of my mother. She was always the centre of attention. I was just the sick daughter, always in her shadow. I wanted to get away...I wanted to shine on my own. I was so dependent on her, you have no idea how much I hated that. All because of..."
She stopped abruptly and Harry could have sworn she blushed, had not she been a ghost and thus, not able to.
Harry, who had been striving to see how the diadem could have become a Horcrux in the first place, had his worst fears confirmed when he heard about the former location of the object.
"Did you tell anyone else about this?" he asked suddenly.
The ghost whimpered softly.
"He...he seemed to know what I was going through. He sympathised."
"Yeah, he has that particular gift," Harry said morosely. He did not need to ask a name. The pieces of the puzzle were starting to fall into place and he followed his thoughts to the inevitable end. Voldemort had recovered the diadem from that forest in Albania and probably brought it back to Hogwarts, like Dumbledore had suspected...on the night he came asking for the DADA job he probably hid it here, of course! Harry still had very clear in his mind the memory of that visit that Voldemort had paid to the newly appointed headmaster of Hogwarts.
But where? Where did he hide it? Harry asked himself. He really did not have the answer to that and knew that the ghost could not help him either.
"Thank you for your help," he said politely, signalling to Liliana to follow him out, but the Grey Lady stopped them.
"Can you stay behind for a moment?" she addressed Liliana.
The Slytherin heiress complied, closing the door behind Harry. Helena floated in her direction cautiously. The same caution could also be read in the girl's expression.
"I could see it immediately," Helena began. "You have taken the same potion I have."
Liliana's eyes widened ever so slightly.
"How come..."
"Oh, there are many signs, you know. I knew as soon as you stepped in the room."
Liliana did not say anything, weighing the ghost with an unfathomable expression.
"It will only get worse over time. You want to be so much with the other person, you yearn to be in their company all the time that you begin to hate them for it. It's a mass of contradictory feelings, tearing you apart. "
"I can't sleep well lately. I keep dreaming strange things." Liliana unexpectedly confessed.
"Who is it?" the ghost inquired.
It was Liliana's turn to hesitate. "It's the man who charmed you in telling where the diadem was."
She could tell that the ghost was in shock.
"You are related?" she finally articulated.
"I'm Salazar's heir. And so is he."
"I remember Salazar, you know. I lived in his time. You do remind me of him a bit. Your eyes..."
"Voldemort resembles his Muggle father."
The ghost nodded softly. "There's no cure for it, no going back either. You need to stay strong. Constancy of the mind is what you need now. It's all that can help you."
Liliana bowed her head in her direction and stepped out. She found Harry in front of the room, a thoughtful expression on his face.
"I think I know where he hid it," he told her. "I mean, it's the only logical, possible explanation, otherwise, someone would have found it by now."
Liliana raised an eyebrow at him.
"Room of requirement!" breathed Harry. "Let's go!"
The two students found refuge under his cloak again, embarking on a difficult task: finding a needle in a haystack.
The night sky was clear and ornamented by a multitude of stars as the two vampires walked steadily along the main alley leading to the gates of the Parkinson mansion.
"This is completely mad," one of them said. "I will not accompany you there. This is as far as I go."
The other grasped his shoulder.
"You can't leave me alone with them, Jurgen."
Jurgen pushed Alessandro's hand away.
"You are not going to obtain anything but humiliation from this visit. We have been unofficially defeated. With your visit, you only make our defeat official now."
"Still, this massacre of our peers cannot continue. We need to stop the Ministry from attacking us."
"For the last time, the Voldemort is the Ministry! Do you think he will show any compassion after all that happened last time?"
"I need to reach some kind of agreement with him; otherwise he will not stop decimating us."
Jurgen growled, frustrated, and stopped in the middle of the road.
"Good luck then. We have no weakness to exploit, we have nothing to negotiate with. You have not allowed me to bring that girl to us. She could have been our warranty. Now you are on our own."
They looked at each other in cold silence for a moment before Jurgen turned and walked away, then disappeared into his wolf form. Alessandro watched him warily, knowing well two things. One was that their warrior was right. The other was that it would be even more difficult to negotiate anything with Voldemort without his support.
The gates of the mansion opened in front of him, and the vampire walked towards the marble stairs, where a young man seemed to be waiting for him. He had jet-black hair and a pale, yet perfect complection. His whole attire, from his polished shoes to his well wrapped tie was studied to perfection.
"The Dark Lord is waiting for you," he said simply when Alessandro approached. "Please follow me."
The vampire nodded and followed him silently into the handsome house. Somehow Voldemort always picked the best places to stay, he mused.
The young man opened the doors of an impressive sitting room and as he stepped in, Alessandro distinguished the silhouette of a tall man standing in front of the large French windows. There was a fire lit in a corner and the room was fairly bright. It became crystal clear to him that Voldemort's initial courtesy towards them had evaporated since their last meeting.
"Thank you, Ralph." The man said, turning around.
Alessandro thought he looked somewhat different than the last time he had seen him. Definitely older, but that was not all: something else was off, but difficult to say what.
Voldemort weighed him curiously with his gaze, then sat down, inviting the vampire to do the same.
"This is unexpected," he commented. "What is the purpose of your visit? You did not explain very clearly to Bellatrix when you asked for this appointment."
Alessandro knew well that Voldemort was not one to be fooled by nice words. He needed to get to the point immediately.
"I am here to put an end to our current conflict, before it gets any worse."
"Ah, so finally you see reason," Voldemort said, crossing his arms in front of his chest, a look of clear satisfaction on his face. "That is to say, before all of you get eliminated. How many of your kind are still out there?"
"Enough that my presence here is necessary," Alessandro replied evenly, wincing inside at Voldemort's deliberate malice.
"But I see you are alone this evening. Where are your close advisers, the ones who accompanied you to the negotiations at our last meeting?"
Alessandro did not answer immediately, and Voldemort smirked. "Is it possible that you do not represent the wishes of the entire community?"
The wizard and the vampire looked at each other for a few moments in tense silence.
"With few exceptions, they all agree with me," Alessandro stated in the end.
"I see," the Dark Lord said, passing a hand through his hair, his dark eyes thoughtful. "I reckon these exceptions include your slippery friend, Jurgen."
Alessandro's eyes hardened and the wizard smiled again.
"So how do you see things, then?" he asked.
"I hope you'll stop hostilities against us. I know it is you who controls the Ministry and has seeded the fear and retaliation against us."
"You started this war with me, Alessandro," the Dark Lord stated matter-of-factly. "You knew I have no boundaries when it comes to retaliation and still, you decided to attack my men. You face near extinction here in Britain, and still you think you can tell me to stop. Just like that."
The vampire shook his head.
"I will, but I have conditions," Voldemort admitted.
He enjoyed seeing the old vampire squirming a little. He had known this day would come sooner or later. He had always held some sort of admiration for Alessandro, for the way he had ruled over the vampire community for many centuries. He was committed to his peers, and that made him vulnerable. One more reason why Tom had always liked to operate alone.
"State your terms, then," Alessandro said stonily.
"From now on, you and your kind will rely on me as your leader. Other than that, I will need a token of your commitment to me."
The vampire had expected tough conditions, but Voldemort was as usual pushing the boundaries of what he had imagined.
"And if we refuse?" he asked.
"You prefer to be destroyed then? Then why did you come here tonight?" Voldemort asked pleasantly.
"What 'token' do you have in mind?" Alessandro literally had to force the words out.
"Well, since you have specialised in attacking wizards as of lately...there is a group of wizards which need to be located and destroyed. They use unplottable locations and call themselves the Order of the Phoenix. They're Dumbledore's men and last resort. Before I proclaim my rule, these people and their families need to be eliminated. This will be your job in the weeks to come."
Alessandro let go of the margin of the old oak table he had been gripping for the past few minutes. Voldemort was asking him to eliminate the only barrier left between himself and the domination of the wizarding world. He did not want to be part of that.
"What will it be then?" Voldemort asked, noting his hesitation.
"I will convey your proposal to our Council and will inform you of the decision," the vampire said, standing.
"You should know that the more time you take, the more of your kind are destroyed. I count on your speediness in this matter."
Alessandro nodded distractedly. Ralph appeared a moment later to accompany him out.
As they left, Tom stretched, the pleasant smile on his face becoming somewhat predatory. They were all just too predictable. There was no fun in crushing them anymore, he mused.
"Nagini!" he called, annoyed that the snake had once again escaped into the grounds when he had ordered her to remain close to him at all times.
"Milord..."
Ralph had returned and was hovering in front of the open doors.
"Do you need anything else?" he asked, when Tom's eyes settled on him.
"Do you think that went well, young Parkinson?" the Dark Lord suddenly asked.
Ralph hesitated. It seemed that Voldemort was fully aware that he had been listening to the conversation the whole time.
"Yes, milord, I think we have no surprises to fear from their side in the future."
"I tend to say the same," Tom said casually.
Ralph felt something slithering into the room and tried to master his aversion to Voldemort's close companion. He made room for Nagini, who was still well-protected by the silvery spells. Once again, he wondered whether the snake was in some kind of danger. He was impressed by Voldemort's care for his pet as of late.
"Ah, finally you show yourself, ungrateful creature!" the Dark Lord snapped. "Come here!"
Nagini approached, although Tom had not spoken Parseltongue to her. But as she slithered in his direction, Voldemort suddenly went very pale and clutched the table, fighting to keep his balance. He did not manage and fell to his knees. He seemed to experience some painful spasms.
"Milord!" Ralph cried, hurrying in his direction. "Milord, are you all right? Let me help..."
The Death Eater did not manage to get close enough to see what was wrong with his master, because the snake suddenly threw herself at him, trying to protect Voldemort. She hissed furiously at him, ready to strike.
"Come here," Ralph heard Voldemort whisper in that strange language of his and Nagini returned to him.
"Get out!" he ordered the Death Eater with difficulty. "NOW!"
Ralph hurried outside, closed the doors behind him and leaned against them, his heart beating madly. A step away from being killed by the awful creature, but even worse, something was wrong with Voldemort, something was very wrong, Ralph could tell from his reaction. Was he in immediate danger? If so, why had he not accepted his help: he was a mediwizard after all. It was clear that Voldemort did not trust him enough. This, or maybe his pain was of a different nature. Either way, Ralph was scared. Scared to see his lord so vulnerable and scared to see that he refused his help.
Inside, Tom drew close to Nagini's cold body, and the snake put her head in his palm. He could feel her sorrow and he did not admonish her further. He laid on the floor, breathing heavily and waiting patiently for the pain to disappear. This pain is different, so much more intense, he mused, clutching at his chest. He remembered the night he had experienced the pain for the first time. It was nothing like now.
He did not need anybody to tell him what this was all about. He knew all too well that they had destroyed yet another Horcrux. The diadem was gone, useless now...
He also had the certainty that it was no longer safe for him to make another Horcrux. The terrible pain was witness to his soul's disintegration. The peril of dying was far too serious. All this despite the energy he had gained through the spell used by his cousin...
Only Nagini remained among them Horcruxes, probably the most vulnerable of all. It had been just a few days since the cup had been destroyed, which meant that they knew what they were looking for and where the objects were to be found. This was no mere coincidence.
"I need to keep you safe, Nagini. Stay close to me, my cousin will come for you soon. It's just you and me now."
But the giant snake simply stared at him, her round cold eyes unmoving.
A/N: Hi guys, I'm sorry it's been a while since I updated, but I've been short on time, got a new job, very demanding and no time for hobbies anymore...:(
I hope you enjoyed this chapter, much more is still to come including...yes, real interaction between Tom and Liliana. All pieces are starting to fall into place now, so plenty of fun ahead.
As for our characters, I haven't really thought who could play them in a movie, but I'm glad you see this story like that. That British actor with green eyes, yep, he could definitely be Harry, I'd give him the part :)
I'm also surprised to see how popular Liliana is with you. Is she more popular than Tom?! That will do terrible damage to his ego, poor him :)