Chapter 71 - "Moving, just keep moving. 'Till I don't know what's sane."
The Great Hall was buzzing with gossip and catch up chat. But where once the talk had been jovial and bright, this year the Hall had a feeling of low, simmering anxiety. Circe watched on as students conversed and greeted one another after a long and strange summer, punctuated with many an unsettling story in the Prophet or on the airwaves. The seemingly random attacks, led by Fenrir and his pack, were terrorizing the wizarding community into a state of almost hysteria. And Circe could see a few seats at the house benches that were empty. A few students had decided not to come back to Hogwarts…
Her new role as Head of Ravenclaw house had meant that Circe had been required to meet her students at the carriages and usher them swiftly up to Ravenclaw tower as they arrived. Any joy or wonder that she might have felt from taking up her new role was swiftly overridden by the sea of worried faces that passed her by.
Moving, moving, just keep them moving. No time to stop and ask questions… Circe's brain neurotically repeated to herself over and over again. Her cheeks were sore from all of the forced smiling she'd done at the kids.
The students were on edge. And the searching of their luggage trunks, as soon as they arrived in Hogsmeade, didn't help to quieten their nerves. Again she had seen Tonks exit the very end carriage of The Hogwarts express, incognito as a ticket stubber. But she had known it was her when she lifted her conductor's hat and let her transfigured, brown hair, return to her trademark pink.
"Better disguise this time, Cee?" She asked with a wink.
"Much." Circe replied, letting Tonks return back to her duties for that evening.
Severus had done the same with the Slytherins, packing them into carriages and sending them up to the castle as quick as he could. He lingered over Draco and his cohort of friends, as the other students shot teasing comments at the Malfoy boy. Circe had heard Severus issue several detentions already for "How will you tell your father about this now, Malfoy?!" type jokes. Draco looked like he was vying between bursting into tears and hitting anyone who tried to take a chunk out of him. Circe didn't envy the burden that now sat on Snape's shoulders; looking after Draco would involve just as much controlling of his temper than of controlling the actions of others.
Circe sat a little uneasy at the staff table, thinking of her last moments at Hogsmeade station: Tonks had wandered over to her just as she was about to take the last carriage up to Hogwarts, asking if Harry had passed her by yet.
"I thought you were keeping him back." She had responded a little uneasily.
"No… no I wasn't." Tonks muttered. "He definitely got on the train in London. I saw it."
Then where is he? Circe thought to herself as she scanned over the faces of the Gryffindor table. Harry still missing from their ranks. She dared not stop and think about the ever expansive list of dreadful possibilities that might have befallen Potter. Instead she forced herself onwards, into the castle, in the knowledge that someone was out there looking for him. She forced her mind to keep moving. Ever onwards. No time to draw breath. Otherwise that awful, hollow feeling deep inside her would catch up with her. The feeling of mounting dread. A creeping, lurking panic attack. That old sensation of drowning. A feeling that she thought was beginning to ease over the summer, but something about being back at Hogwarts had exacerbated it. Something about being around those who needed her, those who depended on her, those who trusted her...
She herself was sat at the position right in front of the Ravenclaw House table. She smiled warmly at any new First Years that passed by, on their way to their seats, also shooting a kind nod at Cho and Luna anytime they caught her eye. The hollow feeling inside her seemed a little pushed back each time she focused on them and for that alone, she was grateful. She didn't have a bad bunch of kids, she conceded to herself as a grin of silent triumph crept across her face.
The Slytherin table was on the left of her House's and that meant Severus was not sat beside her. Instead, the Headmaster was positioned between them, watching the sorting with the gleeful eye. The Hat proclaimed a young witch for Hufflepuff and Circe clapped politely, leaning in close to Dumbledore.
"I haven't thanked you for the book, Headmaster. The one you left for me at Flourish and Blotts."
"Did it answer your questions?" Albus muttered back.
"I think it raised more than it answered, truthfully. Regulus mentioned your research too. In his diary. You got right under the skin of The Dark Lord."
"Oh, Professor, I'm afraid you're quite mistaken there. I am neither Demdyke or Chattox. I could never take credit for the work they endeavoured to publish." Dumbledore said slowly, breaking his sparkling gaze with her to clap once more as another witch was sorted into Slytherin.
"So… Regulus was wrong. Voldemort was wrong."
"He has been wrong about a great many things and a great many people." Dumbledore cast a sidelong glance at Severus beside him. Snape looked back at them both with a stoic and still face.
Let's hope so… Circe thought to herself as Snape's obsidian eyes lingered on her. On to the next problem… Moving, just keep on moving. On to the next mystery, on to the next puzzle.
The Great Hall's doors creaked open and in strode Harry, his nose streaming with blood. The boy hastily wiped the mess with his sleeve as Hermione tutted loud enough to be heard over the general hubbub. But Circe fought down a flutter of panic inside her.
Now how the bloody hell did that happen?
A lot of people's attentions now seemed to be focused on Harry, and Dumbledore rose to his feet with a clear of his throat, trying to distract their focus from him.
"Thank you all for complying with the baggage search." He began, grabbing the edges of the owl-carved lectern with one pink hand and one scorched black. Once again, Circe realised she was outwardly grimacing at Dumbledore's wound and she looked sharply down at her gold plate, remembering a time when she would have hated somebody to so openly have gawked at her wound. "Please be assured that this is all for your safety, to keep Hogwarts a safe place for all within. But there are also some changes happening within Hogwarts's walls this year. We are pleased to welcome Professor Slughorn as our newest member of staff."
Slughorn stood up, his bald head gleaming in the candlelight, and his big waistcoated belly casting the table below into shadow.
"He will be stepping in to teach Potions." Dumbledore said matter-of-factly, and the polite clapping that had heralded Slughorn's rise from the staff table petered out into shocked whispers and gasps. Circe watched as a mixture of varying degrees of horror crept over the faces of the students before her.
"Professor Snape, meanwhile, will be taking over the position of Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher."
Cries of outrage erupted in several locations, the most vocal of which was from Harry himself. There was a small smattering of congratulatory applause from the Slytherins at this announcement, but the rest of the school looked ready to mutiny…
"Professor Flitwick, as I'm sure some of you have already noticed, has stepped back from his role as Head of House. So in his stead, may I present his successor: Professor Circe Smith, the newly appointed Head of Ravenclaw House."
Circe's announcement, following the bombshell of Severus's, did not garner the reaction that it might once have had from the students. But nevertheless, Circe felt a small swell of pride when a chorus of cheers and clapping started from Cho and Luna at the Ravenclaw table. She smiled back at them and waved lazily to her students. When the initial shock had faded and other Houses digested this second of Dumbledore's announcements, more students joined in the round of applause, most of the more enthusiastic clappers coming from the old members of Dumbledore's Army. Circe felt compelled to rise to her feet and take her applause properly. She bowed a little to the students and sat back down swiftly. It upset her slightly to know that out of her and Severus, one of their promotions had been met with general scorn, and the other had been met with support. Circe knew that Severus didn't put so much stock in the opinions of the students as she did, but nevertheless it must hurt to sit through a reaction like that. Especially with the reaction to her following so closely after it…
"Now, as everybody in this Hall knows, Lord Voldemort and his followers are once more at large and gaining in strength." Dumbledore continued, his voice taking on a grave quality. "The warnings I imparted to you all on the day of Cedric Diggory's funeral have come back to haunt each and all of us in a way that I always hoped they wouldn't... So, I cannot emphasise strongly enough how dangerous the present situation is, and how much care each of us at Hogwarts must take to ensure that we remain safe. The castle's magical fortifications have been strengthened over the summer, we are protected in new and more powerful ways, but we must still guard scrupulously against carelessness. I urge you therefore, to stick to any restrictions or rules that your teachers impose upon you, however irksome you may find them. I implore you, should you notice anything strange or suspicious within or outside the castle, to report it to your Head of House or another member of staff immediately. I trust you all know that each of the staff sat at this table are a ready and eagerly awaiting ear, should you wish to talk. No matter what it might be that bothers you…"
As the Headmaster concluded his speech, Circe's eyes traveled over to Draco, who sat at his table hovering his fork nonchalantly in the air in front of his face. He looked almost relieved when the Headmaster dismissed them all to bed.
"Very stirring, Headmaster." Circe whispered to Dumbledore as he took his seat again beside her.
"Well, Professor, I do intend to make it to the end of this year without being bumped-off early." he uttered back to her sardonically.
Circe felt a tightening in her chest, as if a stone-cold slab had been placed upon her breastbone. As she looked at the old man beside her, realisation hit her like a troll's club falling on her head from the sky and, despite the cold hollowness she felt inside, her eyes filled with tears.
Dumbledore's going to die…
Acceptance struck her in that moment and she could no longer pretend that the strange day in Little Hangleton hadn't happened. The consequences of it were finally encroaching on her.
"Does it… hurt?" Circe asked, glancing down at his black hand.
"From time to time… But Severus keeps me well stocked enough so that I am not in too much discomfort."
"I'm sorry about what I said before." Circe said quietly with a small sniff. "About you being blasé. You're braver than I would be. I'd just want out straight away. I don't know if I could live a whole year in the knowledge that I was going to-"
"It is not easy. But sometimes we must make a choice between what is right and what is easy… I have a great many things to do before I go and a great many questions to answer." Dumbledore said, patting her shoulder comfortingly. Nevertheless, her tears still came, flowing down her face as she tried to hide her sadness from the students still softly shuffling out of the Great Hall.
"I don't want you to go..." Circe whispered, almost like a frightened child, her voice thick with emotion. "Neither does Severus. You have given me so much. You brought me home… You gave me him. You've given me another family..."
"And all of that will still be yours when I am gone, child." Dumbledore replied softly. "In fact, it will be yours and Severus's duty, in those days, to protect your home. Their home." he said, pointing at the last of the students.
Circe dried her eyes hastily as she heard the steady approach of Minerva. Her old friend looked at her with scrupulous eyes, holding the Sorting Hat in her arms as her frown grew deeper each time she glanced from Circe to Dumbledore.
"Headmaster. The Hat, for you to take back to your Office." she said, extending it out to Dumbledore. He took it from her gentle hands and nodded thankfully back at her.
"Done for another year, are you?" he chuckled at the Hat, rising from the staff table and beginning his long walk back to his Office. Circe watched him leave with sad eyes. Minerva too followed the Headmaster out with her eyes, unaware of the oncoming tragedy but sensing that something was not right...
"Circe, the Heads of Houses check in, around about this time, on their new First Years. Just to make sure they're settling into their dormitories nicely. And congratulations, my dear." Mcgonagall said in her lilting voice and Circe smiled, the sound a soothing tonic to her ears.
"Thanks, Min." Circe said with a nod. "Celebratory firewhiskey in the conservatory later?"
"Absolutely. Can't have a promotion pass us by without commemorating it with a dram." Mcgonagall chuckled, taking Circe arm in arm as she joined her friend at her side. "I must say… I was rather pleased when I saw Professor Slughorn's personal effects being carried up to the Head of Ravenclaw House's traditional rooms. I would rather miss your company."
"That's exactly why I turned them down, Min." Circe replied with a bright smile, letting herself be led out of the Great Hall by Mcgonagall. "Can't leave you on your own!"
"You leave me on my own plenty when you sneak away by cover of night to visit-"
"Shh!" Circe exclaimed.
The two of them turned around to glance back at Severus. Minerva was unable to contain a small giggle from escaping her pursed lips. Snape glared at them from over his goblet, a dark look of confusion on his face.
"I suppose he can be quite attractive… when he's not scowling." Minerva whispered. "In a sort of strikingly… Oh what's the word I'm looking for..? You know… gothic, sharp..."
"Byronic way?" Circe offered.
"You've thought about this before..." Minerva chuckled.
"Sounds like you have too! Am I gonna have to get my cat claws out, Minerva?" asked Circe in a chuckle.
"Don't be ridiculous, I knew long before your little scupper in Grimmauld Place that something was afoot between you two. I would have clocked it just by the way he looks at you... Like there's nobody else in this castle. Like he will starve if he does not drink up every last bit of you. Even if I wasn't old enough to be his mother, there's no one that could even come close to drawing his eye. I don't think there's a word in the English lexicon to summarise how Severus looks at you…"
"Min, you're making me blush." Circe muttered out as a red-hot flush of embarrassment bloomed over her skin.
"Well, I have never been one for half-truths and platitudes. So you may trust me when I tell you that you have Severus wholeheartedly. And I am glad for it. For so many years I watched him struggle under his own weight and my heart broke for him. And perhaps because I watched him all those years, I noticed when his attentions turned to you. I am glad he has found his soul's match in you."
"You believe in soulmates and all that?" asked Circe as they journeyed on through Hogwarts's halls.
"You do not?"
"I believe… I don't know. I believe some people are more suited to one another. But a relationship requires work. More than just cosmic intervention. I'd rather have a love like Rosalind and Orlando, full of wit and craft, than Romeo and Juliet…"
"Ahh but a soulmate can be forged. Crafted over time. It reminds me of my dear Elphinistone. I would not have been the mirror of his soul when I was a young woman, but I became that integral part of him. A soulmate adores you, but challenges you. Stands up to you in a way no one else will. It is not all peaches and cream, but roses and thorns…"
"You're a closet romantic too then…" Circe giggled.
"Well, allow an old woman to live vicariously through her friends." Mcgonagall said, clutching at Circe's arm. "And there is something rather primally sexual in a deep-voiced man, is there not?" she whispered in her ear.
"Minerva!" Circe shrieked, aghast that the word "sexual" had just fallen out of her mouth.
"Elphinistone had a wonderful voice like Severus's…" Mcgonagall sighed. "It brought a tear to my eye when I would hear him reading to you."
"Perhaps I should get him to make a recording for you then…" Circe sighed. "What do you want him to perform? Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats?"
"T.S Elliot?! Oh heavens no! A voice like that is suited for nothing less than Shakespeare."
The Ravenclaw common room was full of that same nervous energy that had been pervasive in the Great Hall. Circe's students had a great many questions for her, questions that she hoped she'd answered right.
Is Hogwarts really safe?
Are we in danger here?
Will things still be the same at Hogwarts?
Circe wanted the answer to all of them to be "yes", but honestly she didn't know what the answer was. Still, as the new Head of Ravenclaw House, it was up to her to have an air of authority and certainty, even when she didn't feel like she did. All she hoped is that her bright, wit-filled, intelligent students couldn't see right through her…
She sat in a plush blue sofa, watching carefully as students went whizzing around from dorm room to dorm room, seeing their friends and sharing their summer stories. A few times, a nervous First Year had approached her to ask a question or tell her that they'd managed to lose something in between getting off the train and trekking up to the Tower. But nevertheless, Circe was able to keep their tears at bay by giving them a few words of comfort, and there was always an older student on-hand nearby to help their younger house brethren out. For now, she was left quite alone and she took the opportunity to glance around what had once been her former home.
The Tower was unchanged all these years. The great domed ceiling above her still sparkled with the painted stars in the heavens and Circe marvelled at the clever charm some bright Ravenclaw in the past had placed on the ceiling so that the stars changed their positions based on where they were in the sky as the year progressed. A constellation that looked like a strange, pointed box with four arms sticking out of it hung in the middle of the ceiling and Circe, never having been a purveyor of the stars, had no clue what it was. It had fallen dark by now, but the room was still lined with several large, gothic windows that would spill airy and refreshing light into the room by day, looking out across an almost 360 degree view of Hogwarts and its grounds. On a good day, Circe could see all the way to the distant, heather covered mountains, but now all that lay beyond the glass was the inky blackness of night. She closed her eyes, still able to hear the faint whistling that the Tower made when the winds whipped around it. She couldn't count how many nights she had fallen asleep to that exact sound. In fact, when she'd first left Hogwarts, she'd found it difficult to fall asleep without that noise soundtracking her bedtime. Myron, however, had been a little infuriated by the noise, having to stuff his ears with wax and cotton balls each time he went to bed. Hence why he always blamed his lateness to lessons on missing the noise of his alarm clock… It was also the reason why Circe and Myron hung out so frequently in the quad outside the Staff Room instead of the book-lined reader's paradise that was the Ravenclaw common room. But, with a gorgeous open fireplace, more comfortable chairs, sofas and divans than Circe could count, an assortment of curiosity piquing equipment like telescopes, globes and chess boards, she could see herself spending more and more time in here as the year went on.
Circe yawned and rose from her seat. The students had stopped in their mad dashes and it seemed things were quietening down for the night. She decided to do one more round of check-ins in the dorms before settling in to her own bed. She moved from room to room, knocking politely on each door and poking her head around into the dormitories.
"Everything alright?" She asked a wee group of First Years, chatting and tucking into a small mountain of Fudge Flies and Chocolate Frogs.
"Yes." They all responded, looking back at her with wide, sugary smiles.
"Well, not too many sweets before bed. Otherwise you'll be up all night and not bright and alert for your first day of lessons tomorrow." She said, feeling very matronly. She closed the door behind her as a round of giggles erupted from the students. Circe knew full well most of the first night back at Hogwarts was spent staying up late to chat and gossip and do the things teenagers do.
The last door she passed was the Ravenclaw Sixth Year's Girl's dormitory and she once again knocked politely on it. She waited longer than she did with the younger years, knowing that the older kids had more to hide than the smaller ones… But nevertheless, her brow furrowed when she heard nothing at all. She withdrew her wand and cast the alohomora spell, and as soon as the door opened, a burst of music erupted out.
"Got a low, low feeling around me,
And a stone cold feeling inside,
And I just can't stop messing my mind up,
Or wasting my time"
A squeal of girl's voices followed as Circe strode into the room. Cho and Luna sat cross legged on the floor, around a small and very familiar CD player. Padma Patil sank to the mattress she had been bouncing on with a heavy slump, her eyes wide and shocked.
"That… that was mine!" Circe exclaimed, pointing at the CD Player. "How… I thought it broke."
"Oh Neville tried to fix it for you when Ron knocked it over. He's quite good with things like that.." Said Luna dreamily. "But by the time he'd mended it, you had your other remarkable music device."
"It's called a Cantuscope, Luna." Cho said quietly.
"And then Longbottom gave it to Luna when he developed a little crush on her!" Squealed Padma.
Circe had never seen Luna be affected by the words of another, but she watched as the pale face of the young girl turned as red as her raddish earrings.
"We learnt how to do silencing charms pretty quickly after last year." Luna said, trying to move past Padma's comment. "Dean was quite upset after what Umbridge did to his Hi-Fi. But we've been-"
"You kept the MMAP going…" Circe breathed. A wide smile bloomed across her face.
"We only just got the bloody thing back from the Hufflepuffs!" Exclaimed Cho, giving the player a small tap on it's top. "And then the lid got jammed and we couldn't get Cormac's bloody Bon Jovi CD out..."
"Oh well, it's a good thing at least one of you lot has taste…" Circe said, pointing at the CD player with a smile. "Who's the Supergrass fan?"
"Oh, that's me." said Cho, raising her hand as she looked down at the CD case in her hands. The girls had quite a collection of music strewn about the floor and it looked like the first night, back in their dorm, would be centered around sharing what they'd bought over the summer holidays.
"Cho fancies Gaz Coombes." stated Padma with another giggle.
"Oh, big ol' sideburns your thing, Cho?" asked Circe with a giggle.
"I do not!" Cho shouted at them, flushing in her cheeks.
"Well, its a good thing to know that not much has changed since the days I was in this old dorm." Circe laughed. "The two top topics of conversation still seem to be boys and music…"
"This was your dorm, Professor?" asked Luna with a long blink of her pale eyelashes.
"Yup, I slept in that bed there." Circe said, pointing at the mattress next to the window with a broom and the crumpled mass of a quidditch kit strewn across it.
"That's my bed." Cho said, Circe having already guessed the answer.
"Hang on... " Circe muttered, striding over to Cho's bed and bouncing across it. She looked intently at the brick wall beside the mattress and traced a finger along the mortar at the joins.
"Uhh… Professor?" asked Padma with a frown.
"Shh! There used to be a hollow… AHA!" she exclaimed, and with a quick tug Circe freed one of the bricks from the wall, revealing a small cubby hole. "I used to put my cassettes in here."
"Cassettes?" asked Luna as her, Cho and Padma drew curiously closer to the hole in the wall Circe had unearthed.
"The things old farts like me used to play music on before CD's." Circe grumbled with a nostalgic smile. "God, I dread to think of the stuff that's been hidden in here over the years…" she muttered, swiftly brushing away the remains of what looked like dust-crusted condom packets…
Bloody teenagers… Circe thought, glancing at the girls poised at her back.
"We could keep a few of our CD's in there…" Cho stated. "It looks big enough."
"And at least I won't step on the cases if I go sleepwalking again…" Luna added. "They can be quite sharp when shattered…"
"Well, whatever you lot do put in there, just know that I was once a teenager too." Circe said, scrunching the long-expired evidence of teenage canoodling into her palm. "And I now know your secret stash place…"
The girls giggled and set about gathering a few of the cases up off the floor to place neatly, side by side, in the small hole in the wall.
"You lot are old enough to know when to go to bed, aren't you?" Circe shot back as she hovered at the dorm's door.
"Yes, Professor." they answered together.
"And you, Cho, need to set a good example as Prefect this year. So make sure this lot get to bed before four in the morning…
"I will, Professor." she responded with a light-hearted laugh.
Circe smiled to herself and closed the door behind her.
Her duties, for tonight, were finished. Circe descended the stairs that lead up to the dormitories and found herself back in the common room. She moved over to the single white marble statue that stood in one of the nooks in the wall, the statue of Rowena Ravenclaw that guarded the entrance to the Tower. But instead of leaving immediately, she stopped and stared for a moment on the face of her house patron. She had, if the carver of the statue was true to life, been very beautiful. High cheekbones and a straight nose. Hair that was stark white hewn in marble, but was once ebony black, flowed down past her waist. Her eyes looked without looking, staring out over the common room with an air of cold superiority.
She looks as deadly and as beautiful as an eagle… thought Circe, feeling a little shiver pass through her in that moment.
"God if she was my mother, I'd want to get out of her shadow too…" Circe muttered quietly to herself.
But at that moment, a ghostly face appeared in the place where Rowena's cold countenance was. Circe gasped aloud as the swirling half-form of the Grey Lady bled out of the statue.
"What did you say…?" whispered the ghost, her face already contorting into an expression of anger.
"My Lady… Helena...!" Circe spluttered out breathlessly. Despite her slightly panicked state, she could see the family resemblance between the statue and the ghost. And as the Grey Lady's eyes flared with anger, she got a sense of that deadliness that she had seen in Rowena. "You're Helena Ravenclaw!"
"What did you say about my mother?!" the ghost asked again, lurching forwards at Circe.
She staggered back, into the common room as her breath caught in her throat.
"Please… don't be angry. I know… I know what happened when you were alive…"
"How dare you… How dare you say that."
"Helena, I know what happened between you and Hugo D'Orton!" Circe shouted at the ghost. The Grey Lady's face fell and the bubbling anger seemed to simmer down into a state of shock.
"You use my name… and his. You might be the first person in this castle to speak both of our names in… fifty years." the ghost's voice came, floaty and ethereal, like the very whispers of the wind around the Tower.
"I just want to know... " Circe began gently, a cautious hand raised to the specter. "I need to ask you-"
"You need to ask me…?" the ghost echoed derisively. "The woman who, in your own words, lived in her mother's shadow until the day she died. Even now I exist in the bounds of her realm. Haunting the halls that she helped build. Nothing more than the mascot of the House that she founded."
"Please, Helena! I need to know about the diadem." Circe said in a rush, the words toppling out of her mouth.
The Grey Lady fixed her with that eagle-esque look , a look of a predator about to pounce on its prey, and Circe felt like she was the small mouse in the hedgerow.
"The diadem… all you ever want to know about is the diadem. Not me, not Helena. But the relics of Rowena…"
"Helena, it's important… The future of our world might depend upon-"
"No!" the ghost screamed, shaking the very walls of the common room, rattling several books off its shelves with the force of her rage. "I have been tricked by one like you before! He knew my name! He knew my secrets! And he defiled it…!"
"Who? Voldemort?" she asked bravely. But her bravery was rewarded with an unearthly scream.
The ghost let out her awful cry and went flying from the common room with a whoosh. Circe tried her best to follow her as she fled, her heart hammering in her chest as she rushed after The Grey Lady.
"Helena! Wait…!" she called out, running to the steps that lead up to the very highest parts of Ravenclaw Tower.
Circe took the spiral staircase two at a time, trying to keep the fleeing ghost in her sights as she travelled up and up and up.
"Please… I'm sorry! I don't want to defile the diadem…. Helena, stop!" she called out through the hard stone walls.
She was breathless and panting by the time she reached the top of the Tower, just able to see the last whisps of the ghost disappear through the wooden door at the end of the stairs. Circe lunged forwards and flung it open with a bang, the cold chill of the night winds hitting her square in the face.
"Helena!" she called out a final time, her voice drowned out by the screaming howl of the night's winds. But the ghost did not return. She was gone.
"Goddammit!" she cried out, kicking at a discarded wooden crate that lay on the floor of the parapet.
The wooden box shattered with the impact of her boot and Circe screamed out her frustration into the dark. She went slack, having emptied all of the air out of her lungs in that cry.
Great… now I've pissed off my "House mascot" on my first day of the job. She thought as she looked up into the clouding sky. The only person, living or dead, that could have told me where one of Voldemort's Horcruxes were…
She glanced down at the floor of the parapet, realising that the discarded wooden crates were the containers that she had used to transport Fred and George's fireworks into the castle. Circe hadn't been back to this tower since the day of-
No… not now….! I can't think about that now. She thought, the memory burning her as sharply as if she'd placed her hand on a stove. But despite her best intentions, she still felt a stifled little sob escape her and she covered her mouth as the tears of sorrow and frustration threatened to spill over.
"Human… are you ailing?" a silky voice called out from around the curve of the tower.
Circe gasped again and peered into the gloom. From out of the shadows came a faint clopping sound and Circe's eyes bulged.
"You're a…"
"My name is Firenze." the silky voice came again, stepping into the light of the Tower and illuminating his human half for Circe to see. "Of the centaur colony of the Forbidden Forest."
CIrce approached him slowly, transfixed by the astonishing blue of his eyes and the almost silvery colour of his hair. He looked like he had been touched by the Moon itself.
"I'm… no I'm not ailing. I'm sorry. Did I disturb you?" she asked, peering down into his hands and seeing cradled there delicately, a telescope.
"I chart the movements of the stars and read the heavens from here often." he stated slowly. "The view from this location is rather better suited than the astronomy tower. Quieter too. I do not garner such… ardent stares when I am left alone here."
Circe realised she was staring, and she closed her mouth quickly. She had heard that Dumbledore had employed a centaur at the end of the previous school year, but her loss and her research into the Horcruxes had meant that she had yet to meet her new colleague. And now here she was, gawking at the easily eight foot tall creature...
"I'm Circe Smith. I teach Ancient Studies." she muttered, her words feeling awkward and basic in her own mouth compared to the eloquent speech of the centaur. "Oh, and I'm the Head of Ravenclaw House…"
"I know you, Circe." Firenze said delicately. "You walked in the Forest with Dumbledore."
Circe remembered that day when the centaurs had circled her and the Headmaster, watching them carefully and gently asserting their presence. She nodded slowly.
"Um… right. Sorry, I must have given you a bit of a fright when I- "
"You did not frighten me. I saw your approach in the stars." the centaur interrupted swiftly.
"The stars…" Circe echoed a little sceptically.
"Yes. Centaurs have read the heavens for thousands of years, as naturally as you humans read from the pages of a book." Firenze stated plainly. "I see much of what was and what is to come in the skies."
"And you saw me?"
"I saw you. Your what was and your what is to come. The Betelgeuse hovers close in your vicinity currently, meaning you are in great pain."
Circe felt her throat close and she stared at the creature wordlessly. She had never put much truck in the prophecies wrought by divination and star-gazing, but something about the sincerity in the centaur's voice gave her reason to pause. He was not madly chattering and mumbling under his breath as Trelawney often did. There was a sureness to his words, a definity. It was as if Firenze knew much more detail, but was deliberately holding back so as not to embarrass Circe.
"But it will not be forever, the charting of the Betelgeuse will not be with you for the rest of your days. But the Serpens Caput will. You will be quite happy to hear that. One nebula swirls behind you, but I see two more ahead. Also a god omen."
Circe didn't understand a word of what the centaur was saying, but nevertheless she nodded along compliantly.
Something about her vacant stare made the centaur let out a small sigh, as gentle as a forest stream babbling over smooth stones, and he beckoned her to him.
"Come. Do you see the Virgo constellation?" he asked, pointing up at the sky at a cluster of stars above their heads.
Circe took the telescope from his outstretched hands and gazed up at the patch of night Firenze pointed at. It took her a moment to see it, but there, burning in the heavens was that same pointed box with four arms sticking out of it that had been in the middle of the common room's ceiling.
"I see it!" she exclaimed in delight.
"The Virgo is grounding. It is an earth sign. So, take comfort in the presence of the Maiden, for she will soothe any uneasy heart. This will be a time of clarity and discovery. Of organisation and reform."
Circe lowered the telescope and handed it reverently back to Firenze.
"And what do your stars say about this War?" she asked cautiously.
"A great many things. That it will only be brought to an end with the defeat of a great one."
"A great one…" Circe echoed with a sceptical brow. "Well who's that? Voldemort? Dumbledore?"
"The stars speak of two great nemesis, locked together in a battle that will ultimately claim the life of the other. Neither can live whilst the other survives… And you are wrought within the very foundations of this battle too. Your fate is ultimately tied to who shall emerge victorious."
Well, I knew that already, Circe thought. But it sent a chill through her to think of what the world might look like if Voldemort were to emerge victorious in this fight. Firenze's prophecies on her had talked about "till the end of her days", but how many days, if any, would she have in a world where The Dark Lord ruled supreme?
"But… there is a future after this?" she asked the centaur cautiously.
"Oh yes, there is always a future. We might not like what we see, but it shall always be there."
"Well, that's… a small comfort I suppose." Circe sighed, frowning hard.
Circe stared up at the sky in silent thought. Trying to hone meaning from the positioning of the tiny white dots in the black expanse, and finding nothing. She thought of asking about Severus's fate, or Minerva's, or Tonks and Remus. But she ultimately decided against it. She knew what Dumbledore's eventual fate was going to be and that alone had sent her world spinning. If she heard any more bad news about those she loved the dearest, then she wasn't sure how she'd cope with it… She took comfort in knowing the centaur had seen her star intertwined with others, not alone, not a singular dot in the big black expanse of nothing. A part of her hoped that meant that she wouldn't be so alone in the nebulous and strange future that awaited her.
"I trust I can continue to come here to stargaze?" the centaur asked her gently. "Professor Flitwick gave me permission last year. As the new leader of the herd of Ravenclaw, I ask that same privilege of you."
"Of course. Yes. Come here whenever you please." Circe answered. "I suppose we'll need all the cosmic intel we can muster in the days to come…"
"The stars have a way of telling us what we already know." Firenze stated wisely. "They confirm our lives, not define them."
"Well, one person's "confirmation" might be different from another… Everyone always sees what they want to see. They find the future they want to find in that giant rorschach picture in the sky. I like things that are concrete. Firm. History. Things that are not changeable…" Circe said firmly. "And I suppose I always thought of stars as things that are sure and fixed. Filling the dark with order, sticking to their course in the sky millennia upon millenia."
"Stars are born and they die, much like us mortal creatures. But their lives span over countless numbers of ours. They accumulate knowledge. They are not pieces of machinery, moving about, in between one another like cogs in a clock. They live and they learn, like we do."
"Well, now you're beginning to sound like Sibyl..." Circe laughed. But the centaur looked back at her with a frown, and Circe realised,with a small blush, that she'd made the comparison of the centaur to Trelawney in her head… "I mean…"
"I know what you mean. Humans cannot see the stars in the way us centaurs do. We are part animal, part man. We still have our ties to the eternal truths of nature. I suppose that is why the bespectacled Seer is wary of me."
Circe sucked her breath in through her teeth. Sibyl had been making her distaste of the centaur known since she was reinstated after Umbridge's departure. The "ardent" looks Firenze seemed to be getting from most of the teenage girls didn't seem to be helping things either.
"You think Sibyl's a Great Seer too?" Circe asked the centaur with a face of puzzlement.
"There is no think about it. Her prophecies have echoed that which the stars have told me. Although I doubt even she is aware of the depths of her prophetic accuracy…" Firenze replied as a ripple of scorn played across his placid face.
"Oh come on… what really has Sibyl been right abo-"
But she stopped dead as a memory came suddenly back to her. A memory of Sibyl reading the mint leaves left over in her birthday mojito and then later… when she had found Severus's gift at that same party.
"I thought your leaves foretold of a meaningful gift from a… romantic love, not a familial love." Sibyl had said, reading Snape's note to her signed "Aunt Bessie".
Oh bloody hell, she thought it was really from an Aunt of mine. But it was from a romantic love. Circe realised, feeling a shiver pass through her. It was just as Firenze said: even Sibyl didn't know how right she was sometimes. Circe had doubted even Severus when he had told her of the Prophecy Sibyl Trelawney had foretold. But something about the simpleness of her revelation made her mind flip.
"Well… that's a turn up for the books." Circe muttered, looking listlessly in front of her. "I suppose now all I need to decide is if I want my future predicted in distant, dying stars or stale tea leaves…"