Chapter Twenty-Nine | Panacea for the Ghūl
Lunch had been, to put it plainly, delightful.
Having put up with the worst of the weird over the last few days, Ron and Hermione were in a state where nothing really seemed to phase them. After a brief (and vicious) explanation of Catherine's plan to take up every available detention slot possible while she worked out the Umbridge problem, they readily accepted the addition of Luna to the Gryffindor table.
Catherine didn't eat, of course, at least not a full meal - only taking small nibbles here and there of the food laid out before them, more for the flavour of it than anything - although that had changed a touch. She found herself drawn to meat, ripping thin strips off a chicken thigh or snatching a tiny bite of pork off Ron's plate.
Not just a vampire, but a carnivore now, it seemed - and it wasn't as if she needed to eat. She was just… curious to see what would happen. Catherine still had no appetite to speak of, not for anything but blood, but she found she still enjoyed the taste of food even if it was now something alien to her.
Unfortunately, eating was something she was now deeply regretting, especially after having picked at lunch and dinner, with Catherine now hunched over in the Room of Requirement and trying to quiet her churning stomach. Dumbledore stood at the opposite end of the arena the castle had made, his wand lowered and a look of concern on his face.
"Are you alright?"
"Fine," she spat, a dribble of bile falling from her lip. She hadn't felt nausea like this in ages, always empty and roiling with blood. Spitting up something solid after having taken a shot to the gut was a feeling she'd forgotten and wasn't particularly happy to refamiliarize herself with. "You're terrifying, you know that, right?"
He paled further.
"Oh, not like that, just-" she gagged again, pressing her hand to her mouth. "No wonder Voldemort is scared of you. I didn't even know someone could transfigure so many animals so quickly. Lions, though? Scary."
Nodding solemnly, although still obviously confused, Dumbledore hummed an affirmation. "Do you need help?"
"Said I'm fine." She snapped her fingers, the messengers appearing in a whorl of mist and presenting a blood vial. They had almost developed an instinctual response at her call and Catherine wondered briefly if that was a good thing, or something very, very bad.
Taking a sip, she sighed as she felt the bruises slip away, the nausea leaving with it. "Just peachy, now."
"How terrible and wondrous that must be," Dumbledore wondered, watching as the vial disappeared back into the waiting hands of the messengers. "Blood of gods, was it?"
"Not literally, I don't think." Her lips pulled into a scowl, remembering the bright silver of Amelia's memory. Force-fed ambrosia and raised like cattle. "It's just what your blood turns into if you do drink the stuff. Yharnam blood."
"And it turns people into beasts?"
"To the best of my knowledge."
Getting to her feet, Catherine cracked her back, leaning on the hammer she had the messengers haul over for her, the poor things.
The floor was dented in places, chunks of rubble strewn about from where she had swung the unwieldy block of stone. She had finally managed to haul it about with one arm, using what she had learned from that old hunter's bone and pouring a bit of magic into her swings.
It was slower than her spear by a fair margin, but she knew that with time she'd get up to speed.
"I'm not going to turn into one of them, I don't think," she said, noticing the look in the Headmaster's eyes. "Can still go mad. I am already, to be honest, but I won't be turning into a beast."
"Are you sure? We could start researching a way to prevent such a thing, if you're trying to put my mind at ease. I'll worry about you regardless, Catherine, so I implore you not to hide things from me."
"Ain't lying. Think I killed whatever beast was inside me when I was given the stuff for the first time."
She remembered the wolf crawling out of a pool of blood. Blood that simmered only an inch deep in Iosefka's clinic.
It was impossible, a hallucination if anything, but to her it carried meaning.
Right you are, child. The curse that lays deep in your veins was slain, by your hand, before it could even offer a scratch.
Rolling her eyes, she gave Dumbledore a nod. "She agrees with me. The… god."
"That… does little to reassure me, I'm afraid."
"Hasn't lied so far. She's a cunt, but she's not a liar. I don't know if she even can lie. It's not really words she talks in, not entirely. More feelings, sounds, colours and… I can't describe it, but you can't lie in colours." Catherine snorted. "Was practically old English when I first heard her. I think I'm rubbing off. Very informal now."
Dumbledore's look spoke of loving exasperation as he puffed his cheeks out, wand twirling in his grip. "You mean to tell me that you've made a god - a god - speak as though she's from a village."
"That's about right."
He chortled, shoulders shaking as he tried to ignore how absolutely, horribly ridiculous it all was. Funny, in the most cosmic of ways.
"You have no idea how glad I am to know you've kept your humour."
"Hah! Eileen mentioned that. The crow hunter I told you about. Said black humour is how you keep your sanity there. Can't trust someone who doesn't joke about death in a place like Yharnam, or jokes about simple things. 'Mad men, all of them'," Catherine uttered, putting on the thick accent of Eileen and sounding more like a drunken Tyke than whatever approximated 'north' in Yharnam.
At least, she sounded like a northerner. Whatever the equivalent would be.
Strange, how that worked.
"I'm afraid I didn't quite catch that."
"Hmm?"
"That last bit. You spoke… Yharmit, I believe."
"I what?" Catherine blinked. "Shit. Really?"
"I didn't understand a word of it, and I know far too many languages to be considered anything but obsessive."
"Mad men, all of them," Catherine repeated, trying not to think of Eileen's voice and enunciating it as clearly as possible, listening as the words spilled out. "That's weird."
"Very. You said you started speaking and understanding the language without ever having studied it, correct?" He smoothed out his beard, picking a bit of stone from it that had come from one of his many transfigured beasts, smashed to pieces by either spell or hammer. "And you can cast spells you've never seen before?"
"I called down lightning on someone. Lightning. I didn't even know you could do that."
"That's… very impressive. Wind, earth, fire, water - the standard elements tend to be a touch tricky to cast in any form beyond something such as a simple aguamenti or incendio, but lightning… even experienced witches and wizards would hesitate before dabbling with such a thing." He studied Catherine, eyes sharp behind half-moon glasses. "Could you try again? Without the pressure of battle. On one of the dummies, perhaps?"
Shrugging, Catherine turned to face one of the dummies lining the arena and raised her wand, trying to call back on that feeling of raw, crackling power that she had felt when fighting the witches. Her thoughts derailed somewhat, drawing up the horrible, burning rush as that Darkbeast poured the skies themselves into her smoking corpse.
Blue, fierce and vibrant fell down from above, appearing for but a blink of an eye as it crashed into the polished oak and tore it in half. The wooden chest of the dummy burst open like a popped blister, spraying smouldering ash across the cobbled floor and splintered scraps of reddish brown, the smoke trickling upward from those jagged pieces thick and gray.
It wasn't normal lightning, she realized, but whatever power leapt across bones as dry as desert sands and still held them together, a beast long, long dead still aching to tear her throat open and lap at her blood with a tongue that had crumbled to dust centuries ago. The magic spoke of necrosis, of rotting corpses in the sun and that same taint that now laid in her veins like a cancer.
This was Yharnam magic, something the churchmen would steal from their gods, but she had called upon it without any sacrifice or ritual to speak of. She still didn't quite know how their magic worked, but it was stolen, not born with them. Not like that bone she had found nestled hardly a foot beneath stale dirt.
You are a Dreamer, and a mage at that. Do not compare yourself to the pretenders of that haunted city. This is the magic of Loran, learned beneath altars raised in our glory, steeped in the ailing rot of their forebears.
"Loran?" Brow furrowed, she huffed in annoyance. "Bloody riddles."
Behind her, Dumbledore clapped his hands together. "Remarkable."
"It's not-"
"Our kind of magic. Yes. I've never before seen such a thing." He practically hummed with excitement, before straightening his glasses, looking almost sheepish. "My apologies Catherine, for interrupting you. Magic has always been a delight to me, so to see something new in what has been a very long life is always a moment I try to savour."
"Not going to mention…" she gestured broadly, fingers wiggling at the smoking ruins of the dummy as if to convey how lethal the whole thing was. "That?"
"Of course. It's not often I witness a spell so terribly destructive, not since the last time I'd fought Tom I believe."
Her nose wrinkled.
"I don't mean to compare you two." Dumbledore sighed loudly, fluffing out the arms of his robes as if to shake out the energy that had come over him. "My lips have become a touch loose, giddy as I am."
"Giddy."
"What's the term that muggles use?" He hummed and hawed, looking both terribly old and terribly young at the very same time. "Ah, a nerd. That was it. There's a reason I pursued a career in academia, and it wasn't just to escape the politics that follow me everywhere. Learning is a gift, and magic an even grander offering."
Feeling as though it was all she could do, Catherine nodded soberly, trying to reconcile the idea of Dumbledore calling himself a nerd after witnessing what amounted to a deep fried killing curse learned from a realm of unspeakable misery.
Maybe Yharnam had done her mind in more than she had thought?
"Thank you."
"For what?" She wondered, still feeling the aftershock of vibrant blue tickling at her arm and dancing on her tongue. Catherine could practically taste the magic on the air, bitter as it was, bringing with it a scent cloying and spiced and something she could only - would only - associate with the pyres of Old Yharnam.
"Teaching an old dog new tricks, of course. But I believe I would have difficulty learning how such a thing even works if you yourself are unaware."
"Like I said, I just… do things. Know things. I'm surprised it stopped scaring me so much. Do you think it's normal for people to get used to awful things so quickly?"
"Unfortunately, yes." Conjuring himself a chair and doing the same for Catherine, he took a seat, motioning for her to do the same and calling an end to the lesson (torture, more like. If Voldemort was a hammer, then Dumbledore was a scalpel), instead leaning into one of their many impromptu conversations. "I couldn't begin to tell you how mundane war became when the entirety of Europe and much of the rest of the world was forced into it. At first no one knew what to do. Another war, with everyone involved…"
He chewed on his cheek, gaze hardening. "After a year or two we would find ourselves discussing casualty reports in the same breath as yesterday's weather. Bombs over London, children ferried to the countryside, the steady march of the German war machine and the knowledge that the boy I had spent my summers with was at the forefront of it..." Dumbledore cast his eyes toward the ceiling, lost in time. "Even that, after a while, became just another thought tucked away in the corner of my mind."
"Feels the same to me," she said, sitting down heavily, her tailbone thudding against the soft fabric and the wood beneath. "I sawed the head off a beast the size of a house, only a few minutes after seeing her change. This is twice, now, that's happened, the first… it hit me hard. I knew him, he helped me, and I had to put him down. This one? She embraced the change. Thought it was something holy, that it made her something more, and- and I don't know. It just feels like another day of school at this point. It's… it's routine."
"We compartmentalize, our way of putting away the horror of it all for a brief few moments so that we may breathe. It's only after, years after that the weight of it all finally settles on our shoulders and we come to recognize what we experienced for the nightmare that it is."
"Is that how long it took you?"
"Thereabouts." Dumbledore flicked his wand, a shimmering array of numbers and letters appearing before him. "You have detention in twenty minutes, I believe."
Casting a cleaning charm on herself, Catherine stood. "Thanks for the lesson today, even if it was a bit more of a beating."
The Headmaster laughed, vanishing the chairs as he also got to his feet. "We can work on apparition in our next lesson, and you can then put it to the test in Yharnam. Although, what you said about the strange magic of that place, seeing it for myself - it may very well be the case that it won't work the way you intend it to. It's no small amount of work to disrupt apparition, but there's nothing that can be predicted about this place nor understood."
"It makes sense as much as it doesn't make sense."
"A conundrum to be sure. And before I forget, don't think I didn't hear about your self-sacrificial escapade today."
"Ah, yeah." She flinched, trying to ignore the worry in his eyes. "Well, if anyone can deal with her, I can."
"That doesn't mean I can't be concerned for you. I'll do my best to keep an eye on things and see if there's any chance at all I can get Dolores removed from her post."
"Torture of students isn't enough?"
"Not unless they're the 'right kind' of student, and there's little to zero chance that Draco Malfoy would find himself in her office with a blood quill in hand."
"No. No, I don't suppose there is." Running her fingers through her hair, Catherine gave Dumbledore a pinched smile. "I have to run."
"I'll see you tomorrow. Same time?"
"Sounds perfect."
After snapping her fingers and handing her hammer off to the little ones, Catherine left the Room of Requirement with calm, but quick strides, and while she was tired from her lesson with Dumbledore she wasn't any more so than she would be in Yharnam. In fact, it fell like a warm-up of sorts, no stakes, no lives, no danger, only the thrill of a good fight and the awe she felt seeing Dumbledore weave spell into spell with speed and precision that she never knew possible.
The man was a force to be reckoned with, even a short stint into his hundreds, and it was no wonder Voldemort still feared him.
One second she was driving her hammer into the skull of a transfigured lion and the next she was frantically dodging icicles so dense they shone a brilliant teal as they whistled through the air. The floor would turn to sludge beneath her feet, a single patch of air to gas that Dumbledore would then ignite, not close enough to hurt but to be a warning, to say 'this could have killed you.'
It was a harsh lesson to know that regardless of how far she had come there was a staggering difference between a fifteen year old with a penchant for murder, and a centennial war veteran with over a decades of experience and knowledge.
But she was there to learn, and by god she would. Anything and everything to ease her travels through Yharnam and come out with at least a hint of her sanity intact, and far fewer scars otherwise.
Her footsteps led her closer and closer to Umbridge's office, and Catherine felt her gut curdle imagining the psychedelic barrage of pink upon pink, shades of which she didn't know even existed, let alone could and would be used as wallpaper.
Not bothering to knock, she opened the door and found herself smiling as Umbridge flailed at the sudden intrusion, scowling at Catherine as she took her seat at the desk with far too much pomp and flair.
"Hey, Professor."
"Potter, you're…" Umbridge's scowl deepened as she saw that Catherine was right on time. "Not to barge into my office like that. Were you raised in a barn?"
"Suburbs, actually."
Face red, Umbridge shoved a sheet of parchment towards her, along with the blood quill. "Write."
So Catherine wrote, repeating her last detention session with even less discomfort, actually enjoying in some way the burn as she steadily etched lines into the back of her hand. It was fascinating to see it at work with every swipe across the page, scratch to scratch, and the fresh red slowly seeping through cracked skin a form of art unto itself.
"How deep do you think I should go this time, Professor. Bone? Or would that be too much?"
Umbridge let out a strangled, choking noise, all gut and throat and horror, as she realized that Catherine had - in the span of five minutes - already filled out half the page, her blood running between her knuckles and staining the parchment beneath.
She kept writing as she watched the woman think, staring down at the steady drip of red that trickled across the back of her hand.
"Not much fun for you if I don't mind the torture, is it?"
"Enough! What is wrong with you?"
"What's wrong with you? You don't see an issue with this?" She asked, flashing the back of her hand, more blood than flesh. "How many other students have you done this to? How many children?"
Oh, the joy Catherine felt seeing that wretched woman's features twist into an expression of outright fury, even the muscles of her throat pulled forward, nose flared and brow crumpled in anger.
She was going to get her to snap.
So she did something incredibly stupid, even for her, and in a fit of fight-addled spite flicked her bloodied fingers at Umbridge's face, spattering her in miniscule flecks of shining red.
Spitting and hollering, Umbridge shrieked as she wiped at her face with the sleeve of her jumper, a horrified wail pouring from her lips as she tried to clean herself off.
"You bitch!"
Roaring with laughter, Catherine flicked her again, tempted to wipe her bloodied hand across Umbridge's face and grip her pudgy cheeks with fingers dripping red. She beamed at the second shriek, Umbridge jumping away from the table and pointing her wand at Catherine.
"You tortured me, you think I won't get you back for it?" She asked, not at all bothered by the wand aimed at her face. "How many other students have you done this to? What else have you done, beyond this? You really believe that you can just get away with this consequence free, don't you? That you won't get your comeuppance?"
Umbridge's voice was hardened with a deep-seated, tangible hatred as she spoke. "Halfbloods and worse. It's the least they deserve, for stealing magic." She jerked her wand to the side. "Up, against the wall. Now."
Hands raised mockingly, Catherine stepped up and stood against the wall, knowing she could kill this woman in the blink of an eye if she wished. The power of it made her heart palpitate, skipping fervently against her ribs and sending staccato jolts of fire churning through her veins.
She loved it.
Loved the control she had, without this repugnant excuse for a human being before her even knowing the danger she was in. She loved it despite that, and wondered how much she could get away with, how far she could push Umbridge until the woman really, truly snapped and she had an excuse to put her down.
Not kill her, per se, but maim? Cripple? Traumatize? Well, she supposed she was doing that right now.
Those Hemwick witches were only an appetizer compared to the things she had begun to dream of doing to Umbridge.
"Torture and now threats, huh? Does Fudge know you're up to this?"
"Don't say his name! I do everything for him! Everything!" Umbridge screamed her words with pure venom, a malice that spoke of one so distant from reality that their hate was something incomprehensible, even to those who shared their views.
Umbridge was a zealot. A manic, bitter woman with delusions of grandeur and a single minded motivation to push her ideas into the limelight at any cost.
She reminded Catherine of the people Dumbledore had fought fifty-odd years ago in the trenches of Berlin.
"You'll have to kill me if you don't want this to get out. You know that, right? I've been tortured by Voldemort on top of his father's desecrated grave. Whatever you can do to me, he's done a hundred times worse."
"Enough with your delusions! You will not threaten me!"
The wand pointed at her sparked dangerously, and Catherine clicked her tongue. "I will. Blackmail, more like. Unless you're willing to do it?" She took a step forward, lowering her arms. "Hmm?"
"I'm warning you, girl."
"Quit warning. Coward." She spat the word, drawing herself up at how Umbridge's hand shook, taking joy in every twitch of her arm. "You can't even hold your wand straight. Here, let me help you."
Her hand shot out, wrapping around Umbridge's own and smearing it with blood. She pressed the tip of the wand against her chest, right above her heart, the wood digging harshly into soft flesh.
"C'mon. You know you can do it. I'm right here, look, I'm making it easy for you and everything."
"You're mad. Absolutely, utterly mad."
"A bit, yeah. What? Do I scare you?" Catherine tore the wand from Umbridge's grip, pushing the woman away and letting her topple over, scrabbling at the top of her desk and upending stacks of parchment as she tried to right herself in a frantic rush, every movement quivering with fear. "And you're going to give your wand up, just like that? You call yourself a witch? Here. Take it."
She whipped the wand past Umbridge's head, wincing in faux sympathy as it cracked against one of the plates behind her, the kitten painted on it mewling silently as it's home was destroyed.
Shoulders rolling, she stomped over to Umbridge and grabbed her by the collar, yanking her to her feet with barely the slightest effort. "You're going to stop torturing students. You're going to stop trying to sabotage this school. You're going to do the job you were supposed to do and teach, and if I hear at all that you're continuing to harass students and ruin their livelihoods I will have your hands. Try casting a spell without those, you useless hack."
Umbridge still shook, eyes bugged out of her head and a thin stream of sweat trickling down her face to pool sickeningly at the top of her lip. Catherine felt the sudden urge to smack her, to watch that sweat fly through the air along with the sharp crimson of Umbridge's own blood. She quashed that urge with a passion she didn't know she held. "You can't-"
"I can and I will." She barked, grabbing Umbridge's hand with her free one and squeezing the fingers until they creaked, just before she knew the knuckles would pop out of place and bones crack beneath her grip. "You will stop, understood?"
"You can't-"
"I can!" Catherine roared, throwing the woman on her back once more. She crouched, squatting next to Umbridge and looking down at her with unrepentant condescension. "I will tell every parent of a child at this school what you and the Ministry have done. I will go to every paper, national and beyond, to point out with utmost disgust the torture you have committed. And when that is done, I will take your fingers, one by one, and feed them to an acromantula while you watch, knowing that you're next." Gripping Umbridge's face, she squeezed her jaw, reminded of how she had done the same to Draco only a short while ago. "Do. You. Understand?"
Nodding fervently, Umbridge gasped with relief as she was let go, scrambling away from Catherine on all fours and pressing her back against the wall, her chest heaving, tears in her eyes.
"Good." With a single wave of her wand, Catherine vanished the blood in the room, righted the papers and tidied all the mess of their little altercation, leaving no trace but the woman below her, trembling with primal fear. "I'll see you tomorrow for our detention, professor."
Stone-faced, she left the room, the door slamming shut and a vial at her lips, coaxed from the mist whilst a grim sense of satisfaction settled deep in her belly, Catherine picturing Umbridge's own expression - reddened with fear and the sudden realization that she had bitten off far more than she could chew.
Her placid features morphed into a grin. Not of a student, a girl her age, but instead a hunter. And that urge to destroy, to dominate and ruin the hateful wretch who had come to haunt the halls of her home - her home - had been slaked.
But more importantly the truest part of her, the Catherine deep down that still remained an intrinsic part of her very soul, that slice of Her took pride in knowing that every student (apart from herself, which she accepted happily) was safe from whatever madness Umbridge had cooked up.
Cheerful and sated, she walked the halls with a song on her lips and a skip in her step, and if she had to terrorize a woman twice her age to help her classmates then by god she'd do it again.