Chapter 37: Mere Memories
Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction and no copyright is intended. Everything that you recognise from the Harry Potter Universe belongs to J.K. Rowling.
Author's Note: Thank you for the new favourites, follows, and reviews!
"Are you ready, Katherine?"
Katherine nodded to her Headmaster across the odd bird-bath like contraption; a pensieve.
She knew she had to concentrate, but she was too preoccupied over the past week with worrying about why Greengrass was trying to separate her from her friends. The love potion luckily missed it's intended target of Sirius or James, but she could not help but be on guard for the next, though usually harmless, attempts from Greengrass.
The chamber, however, was more important to the safety of the school. Hence the reason why Katherine had been summoned to the Headmaster's office to view memories to help aid her in efforts to procure a memory from Slughorn.
"You will have no effect on the memory you are seeing," said Dumbledore further, holding up a hand, "You can only see what the owner of the memory saw."
Katherine nodded again, bracing her hands lightly on the ornate silver-swirled edge of the basin glittering with a metallic liquid.
The sensation of falling while your feet were anchored on the ground was a disorientating experience, much less when you land in the same castle you left, just on the grand marble staircase and a few decades out of time.
Katherine watched as the frayed edges of the memory flapped and swirled like a tarp in wind, unable to see the castle beyond – limited because Dumbledore too had not been able to.
"Are the rumours true, Professor? They can't close Hogwarts, can they?"
Tom Riddle, younger than he had been in the bookstore, gazed imploringly up at an auburn-haired Deputy Headmaster.
"I'm afraid that Headmaster Dippet may have no choice."
Katherine watched Tom's face transform, alarmed and deceptively handsome.
He was still, yet wild, "If it all stopped – if the culprit behind the attacks was caught…"
"Is there something you wish to tell me?" asked Dumbledore, peering over his half-moon spectacles.
Tom immediately collected his expression with disturbing swiftness.
"No, sir," said Tom cordially, blinking, "Nothing at all."
Dumbledore nodded, entirely still suspicious, "It is getting late, Riddle, you should go back to your dormitories."
Tom bowed his head, and turned, "Goodnight, sir."
Katherine wanted to follow Tom, but Dumbledore had turned away. The memory began to fragment around Katherine until she was expelled from the pensieve, her grip ensuring she did not fall back on to the floor of Dumbledore's office.
"He would bring a second year Gryffindor to me that night, Rubeus Hagrid," said Dumbledore, sighing, "A misunderstanding for our beloved gameskeeper with a love for odd creatures and beasts – even then,"
Dumbledore pursed his lips.
"It was enough, however, for the ministry to close the case on the chamber as there were no further attacks."
Dumbledore extracted the memory from the pensieve and deposited it in a phial before producing another. With his wand, he drew out another silvery whisp and stirred it through the liquid of the basin.
"One more time, if you please, Katherine."
With a deep breath to steel herself, Katherine dove into another memory starring Tom Riddle as the world once knew him.
It was just as short as the first memory, a slightly older Tom staying behind after a Slug Club meeting to talk with Professor Slughorn. Katherine could barely orientate herself within the memory despite recognising Slughorn's quarters from the times she had attended his soirees.
When she was ejected from the memory, relief at her sensical surroundings was felt first. She had never been more confused in her life – enduring muffled words and tilting walls and tables that Slughorn had produced.
Katherine shook her head, "How do you know he is talking about this Horcrux thing?"
"A good hunch, Katherine," said Dumbledore quietly, and only with vaguest tones of indignity at her questioning, "It is quite obvious that Tom Riddle is the heir of Slytherin and the only person that knows how to control the beast that is rumoured to the lie in the chamber, we just have to know what is helping him inside the castle… Cast it out, and the chamber closes once again – beast inside…"
Katherine nodded, feeling only marginally guilty for the basilisk inside the chamber.
"The untainted memory from Slughorn is undeniable proof, that why it is important for you to retrieve it as he seems to feel too much shame to admit the truth to me."
"Yes, Professor."
"Now I believe you have a session with Professor Zabini to rush off to… but do not let him keep you from the Halloween feast tonight."
Although Katherine had rushed to the session, barging through the door breathless and red-faced, it seemed Zabini was in no such rush to be in his own office.
Katherine, awkward and alone, sat in the chair on the other side of his desk unable to think of anything else to do but wait.
At first.
A shimmer danced across the floor by the corner, like the shadow cast by water when a bright light was cast upon it. Like the pensieve Katherine had just spent an hour in and out of in Dumbledore's office.
Curious, and glancing around to ensure she was still alone, Katherine stood up and edged closer to the strange light only to find her suspicions to be confirmed. Zabini had a pensieve, the inky black telling sign of a memory circling the bath like a fighting fish.
She wondered…
It was a cold night in Zabini's memory, the moon a mere crescent hanging in a starry sky above. The light night sky meant that they had to be in the country somewhere, far from light pollution.
Zabini stood, a solitary figure in the night.
Katherine looked around for a sign of where they were, hearing jolly laughter and the clinking of tankards in the distance. Lamp posts shone down onto the snow-caked cobblestones, the frost visible drifting through the air like low cloud in the warm yellow spotlights.
There was a church just down the way. Katherine squinted at the sign and discovered that they were in Godric's Hollow – and that Zabini was no longer alone. A heavily cloaked figure was now conversing in hushed tones with the man, standing at a distance and glancing around.
"Don't act like you haven't lost a child before." said Zabini, standing as cold and bold as bronze.
A breeze blew the hood of the figure's cloak back, and Katherine very nearly fell to her knees. Her tears were immediate and froze on her eyelashes – freezing her eyes open as they locked onto her mother.
Florence's eyes suddenly couldn't wait to be anywhere but on Zabini, and took in the burnt patch of grass at her feet, and then tree behind Zabini's shoulder…
"Just get it over with now," Florence met his eyes with fierce determination, "Tell them – Let them kill me."
"No." The word was like a bullet from his mouth.
Florence closed her glassy eyes, "You will."
Zabini's expression didn't falter, but he allowed a curt nod, "But not tonight, go back to your husband and child – while you can."
Katherine watched her mother reach out and rip up the sleeve of Zabini's robe to reveal smooth, clean olive skin.
"There's still hope for you, Dante."
Zabini flinched, rushing to lower his robe sleeve, "We may have been engaged to be married once, Florence, but do not go thinking – for one moment – that you know me," he gulped, "There is… no hope."
"Then why are here – in Godric's Hollow – warning me?"
Florence stepped forward, pleading.
Zabini stepped back.
"You live in Cheshire near Rory, you're not exactly in the neighbourhood." She went on.
Zabini held Florence's eyes, "And if this is discovered, I will surely face swift retribution."
The frustration on her mother's face made Katherine smile. She too knew what it felt like to converse with Zabini to no avail.
Florence shook her head, "Then why bother?"
"I am not on their side."
"But you are not on ours either." said Florence, frowning up at him.
"No," the word was crisp, "If you had any sense you would have run for the countryside and waited this whole war out like I did – safe."
Florence stepped forward again, "Then take my Katherine with you if it is so safe – save an innocent child!"
Zabini didn't step back, almost chest to chest with Florence as he spluttered, "And have the reminder of your death with me for the rest of my life every single time I look into her eyes?"
The cold of the stone castle floor was not an improvement to the snowy scene Katherine had just been ejected from, landing hard on her backside. Landing on her cheeks also, were her tears.
Her mother had been close enough to touch, but Katherine could not touch a memory. And it was that very one she witnessed that imparted the knowledge of who to blame for never being able to feel her mother's arms around her.
Not only had Zabini known her father enough to have immediate disdain for Katherine, he had known her mother. He had refused to keep her safe – and her father.
If it were not for Zabini… Katherine's parents would still be alive.
Her vision blurred with hot tears, Katherine clambered to her feet and made for the door. Ripping it open, she prepared to speed down the hallways, knowing she would find Lily at the Halloween feast. She needed to tell someone about what she saw – but, sooner than expected, she was halted outside Zabini's office.
By the man himself.
The colourless robes were softer than they had any business being, thought Katherine. She pulled back, lifting her sleeve to wipe her nose. Her eyes, in mercy, had stopped watering at the shock of the collision. Her chest was hollow and her throat felt thick when Katherine tried to swallow.
Zabini looked as if he were about to deduct points or give a severe dressing down at the very least, until his eyes caught the strange shimmer in his office.
Zabini became as still as the suits of armour on the wall, his eyes endless as they latched onto Katherine.
She could not bear it. At that moment there was only one thing to do – the very thing he taught her to do.
Run away.
She did not dare look back until she had all but jumped down four flights of the moving staircases to the entrance hall. When she did, she found the castle empty and quiet behind.
He did not come after her.
Relieved, Katherine crossed under the arch to the Entrance Hall to reach the Great Hall. An even greater relief was the red hair Lily on a bench outside – probably waiting for her.
"Lily –"
Katherine's hand fell on an unnaturally rigid shoulder and Lily did not turn.
Eyes wide open, Lily was frozen upright on the bench – petrified.
A scream Katherine did not think possible ripped out of her as she jumped back from her friend, sounding the alarm to the entire school celebrating Halloween just metres away behind the big double doors.
Dumbledore had ordered everyone back to their common rooms with Prefects watching their houses while Professors strolled the castle in patrol after everyone stampeded out of the Great Hall to find Katherine and Lily.
Katherine had been allowed to tag along to the hospital wing to sit with Lily, but her legs were so shaky McGonagall allowed James, Remus, and Sirius to accompany her to ensure she made it back to Gryffindor Tower afterward. This time, at least, Katherine had not fainted.
Once reaching the hospital wing, James had been the one to occupy the chair beside Lily's bed, watching her unblinking green eyes he often wrote sonnets about to recite in the hallways.
McGonagall conferred with Dumbledore while Madam Pomfrey did her best to make Lily comfortable despite being unable to loosen her from her seated position.
"If anyone would be in a bed here, I thought it would have been James." said Sirius, watching on.
Remus leant down on Katherine's other side to explain, "He had just asked Lily to Slughorn's Christmas Party before she left dinner."
Katherine was not surprised.
"And?"
Sirius smiled, eyebrows raised as he watched Lily and James, "She said yes."
Dumbledore cleared his throat as he approached, "More mandrakes are being brewed as we speak, Miss Evans will be perfectly fine,"
Katherine nodded, but the boys either side of her shuffled their feet under their Headmaster's gaze – seemingly unnerved.
Katherine simply did not have the energy – physically or emotionally. Voldemort himself could have shown up and she would be so ticked off she might avada him.
"The task I gave you to retrieve something from a certain Professor, however, is now of the upmost importance."
Katherine took a deep breath and nodded, "I…I need to step outside for a moment."
Katherine holed up against the inside of the window at the end of the hallway, the chill and condensation something consistent in every day at the castle no matter what happened inside of it's walls.
A steady rap of shoes left the Hospital Wing, slowing by Katherine's chosen spot at the window. With a deep breath out as the only warning, she was joined where she leant against the windowpane. There were no words of assurance. There were no perfunctory pats on the shoulder.
There was just Sirius Black, eyes like the lightning outside the castle in the storm lashing the castle and… a little glowing phial.
Sirius licked his lips and held out the phial with a thoughtful look to Katherine, shoulder to shoulder, "I think it's safe to say that you could use a little luck."
When she politely told Remus and Sirius that they could not accompany her and that they should return to the tower, Katherine descended to the dungeons with only the phial she and Sirius won in potions for company.
Felix Felicis.
Not for the first time since returning for the school term, Katherine thought of Giles.
As she uncorked the phial and down the contents, she felt him with her as she stepped into Slughorn's classroom where he toyed with the fish bowl Lily had gifted him.
Katherine took a deep breath before she opened her mouth, silently begging that her voice did not fail her, "Were you here when it happened the first time, Professor?"
Slughorn jumped in his seat, turning around – wide eyed.
"What?" he blinked, before shaking his head and looking down at his hands in his lap, "Oh, yes…"
Katherine felt like her stomach had a million bees inside, the sting of shame for what she was about to bring up to the man nearly unbearable.
"When Tom Riddle set it loose the first time…"
Slughorn spluttered, standing and blinking, "I – now – I don't know what's gotten into Dumbledore's head to tell you about –"
"You can't take it back, Professor. I know that you would if you could," Katherine stepped forward, softening her voice and her eyes to appeal to the wizard, "But you can do the right thing now – you can save Lily."
Slughorn fell back into his chair, unblinking.
Katherine worried he had completely closed up, catatonic, and that the luck potion had failed her –
"It… it's him again?"
Slughorn's eyes were like tennis balls, gleaming up at Katherine in resigned acceptance.
"That's what we need your memory for, sir," said Katherine, carefully, "And if it is…to find out how to stop someone being killed – again."
Slughorn sucked in a long breath through his nose and lifted his wand to his temple, "Very well…"
A stray phial on his desk became the house for the memory, Slughorn extending it shakily.
When Katherine reached for it, he did not release it immediately. He considered Katherine thoughtfully for a moment, thought slightly absent behind his eyes. But it was not that he was not there – it was that he was somewhere else.
"You're not unlike him, you know…" the words were meek, but Slughorn released the phial, shaking his head, "He seemed… nevermind – you will see."
Katherine nodded, coveting the phial, "Thank you, Professor."
Slughorn reluctantly nodded, looking away, before startling and jumping to his feet as fast as his gut would allow.
"Oh blue blazes – Professor Zabini, how long have you been standing there?"
Her ears warmed immediately and Katherine bowed her head, "I will be getting this to Dumbledore now."
Head down, Katherine busied herself with purposeful strides to the door to ignore that she had to pass him to escape.
Zabini however had decided to ignore her presence as well, stepping inside the room and focusing on Slughorn, "I only came to say…"
Katherine did not hear what Zabini had to say to his colleague, and instead hastened along the dungeon hallway, bathed in light from the only windows looking out underneath the lake and the leeching coldness from the stone.
The cold and lack of light set a creeping feeling up Katherine's spine but she did not dare run in case she fell and smashed the phial. Everyone was holed up in their common rooms on Dumbledore's orders after Lily was discovered anyway. With that comfort, Katherine allowed herself to check on the glowing phial.
"Katherine."
The scream that sprung out of her chest startled Katherine as much as the shadowed figure.
"Sorry," Regulus stepped out of the shadows, "I forget that you guys from upstairs can't see as well down here…"
Katherine held a hand to her now slowing heart, "Regulus, christ…"
Regulus nodded to Katherine's glowing hand.
"What's that?"
"Proof – that Voldemort –"
Regulus' cheek twitched.
"- is still alive, here in the castle – in a horcrux."
Regulus closed his eyes, sighing, "So that's what it was…"
"Regulus…"
Regulus gulped, shifting his weight across his hips and holding his hand in a fist against the stone wall. His eyes settled on a wall sconce, the flames reflected in the hard blue.
"At Cissa's wedding, Malfoy gave Greengrass a diary – said there was something special about it."
"It was a Horcrux!"
Regulus gave Katherine a look for her volume, "I knew that whatever it was would bring trouble to Hogwarts – that's why I sent my house elf, Kreacher."
Katherine blinked, shaking her head.
"You…"
Regulus nodded, looking a bit pale.
"Me."
"Will you come with me to Dumbledore?"
Regulus shuffled his feet and glanced at the end of the hallway, "I don't know, Spencer…"
Dumbledore lifted his face from the pensieve, ashen. Blue eyes, devoid of twinkle, settled on Regulus.
"And you're sure, Mister Black?"
Regulus nodded gravely, standing as stiff as a light post.
"Certain."
Dumbledore nodded, pacing the length of his desk twice in thought before throwing a handful of powder into his floo.
The head that emerged in the flickering green flames was familiar. Alastor Moody's deputy was a surprise to Katherine as Dumbledore's choice.
"Rory, we are going to need to come up with probable cause to search Greengrass Manor, we believe that there is a Horcrux with young Griselda – a diary."
Rory's sigh came with a splutter of embers, "That's awfully specific, how are we so sure?"
"We have an inside source," said Dumbledore, importantly, "Please, Rory, time is of the essence."
Rory looked pained, even in flame form, but bowed his head, "Of course."
The man in the fire seemed to turn to look at the two teenagers who had been eavesdropping before disappearing.
Regulus cleared his throat, clear and crisp, "Oh, and Professor?"
Dumbledore hummed, lifting his penetrating gaze back to the Slytherin.
"Yes, Regulus?"
"Horcruxes need to be destroyed with fiend fyre."
The words were flippant, Regulus dusting some lint from the sleeve of his robe as he imparted the information.
Dumbledore seemed to go same colour as the silver instruments whizzing around behind him. For what? Katherine was unsure. But there was something akin to astonishment tainted with trepidation in the Headmaster's eyes as he gazed at young Regulus Black.
"Your knowledge has proved invaluable," said Dumbledore with heartfelt sincerity.
It made Regulus gulp and shuffle his feet.
"Now, it is quite late – you two should be getting to bed."
Regulus snorted on the staircase as it spiralled down, crossing his arms, eyes shining, "Bet he didn't think I knew about fiend fyre…"
Katherine thought it best to not mention that he looked uncannily like his older brother, smug and aloof next to her on the stairs.
"I don't – what is it?" she asked, feeling no shame.
"Dangerous magical flames, Katherine."
Katherine's eyebrows shot up, "Dark?"
"Depends on who is using it," Regulus shrugged, a furrow in his brow, "Even in the most pure hands, it's a raging beast that only knows to destroy."
Katherine sighed, stepping down onto the hallway, "At least we know it will work then."
Regulus gave Katherine a sideways smile, laced with incredulity and let out a hearty chuckle, "Yes, indeed it will."
He stuffed a hand in his robe pocket and together they strolled to the moving staircases where Katherine would go up and Regulus would descend to the dungeons, pretending to all the world that they knew each other no longer when they reached their respective common rooms.
The pumpkins, spider webs, and bats had already been pulled down now that Halloween had come and passed. Soon tinsel, mistletoe, and garlands of holly would crop up around the castle. The winter solstice rapidly loomed while snow packed heavier on the grounds, but Katherine felt lighter than a sprig of dew as she sprung up the moving staircases to Gryffindor Tower.
Lily would be fine, the chamber would be closed, and Voldemort would be a bother no longer.
It would be a sweet relief to be chased down the hallways, not by basilisks and Greengrass, but by enchanted suits of armour in the weeks that were to come.
~* Chapter 38: Middlegame (Preview) ~*
James frowned at the package, "Whose it from?"
Sirius did not even glance at the name tag.
"My parents."
"What is it?" asked Remus, putting down his cup of pumpkin juice.
"I don't know," Sirius' words were sarcastic.
He lifted the package up and down.
"Feels heavy," He placed it down and gave the slightest of smiles, "Must be their disappointment in me."