Soooo... I owe you all an explanation. And the best one I can give is that I was VERY busy over the last few months. I finally found some time to churn out a few more chapters, so here you are. For the record, I AM going to finish this story out, for all of you who lost faith. But anyways, this chapter is a good chapter for a comeback, but it's necessary, so deal. The plot will come back in ch 27.
The Moonlight Glares
Disclaimer: I don't own any of JK Rowling's wonderful world or characters.
Chapter Twenty-Six: The Research
A rustling of feet echoed through black, then stopped.
"It's been three days," said a feminine, sugary voice.
"Three days?" replied another voice, very familiar, "But how can that be, I've only been gone four."
"These things happen very suddenly. She should awake sometime soon."
"But she's been given the best care in the meantime?"
"Of course, do you think I would deprive my daughter of the best healthcare available?"
"Of course not, aunt. Do you mind… letting me stay in here for awhile? I want to sit near her."
"She moved earlier, Mrs. Lane. I think she may come around in the next few hours."
"I would hope so niece, she's been out for five days. The poor dear… and all the investigators from the Ministry need to know what happened."
It was on the seventh day that Hermione stopped just hearing voices. She cracked open her eyes one evening to see Elizabeth sitting with her. She tried to open her mouth but to her horror no sound came out.
"Shh," said Elizabeth, "You've been asleep over a week. Don't strain yourself."
Hermione nodded slowly and then closed her eyes again.
By the time Hermione had actually started getting up and moving around, two weeks had passed. It turns out that magical girls, especially those of great power, have a self-defense mechanism that comes into play when they are assaulted. It ensures a man will not touch her without her consent - but drains her energy to a thread in the process, as it is wild and untamable magic. This is why Hermione had been asleep for a week and a half.
Of course, as soon as her mother had told her about this trait, Hermione had researched it to the bare bones, and found it was most present in pureblooded lines, as the women of these lines were often objects in society, thus more prone to attack. Generations of safety and inactivity could weaken the trait to so much it was nonexistent, and in many half-blood lines it had died out entirely as women had learned to defend themselves more thoroughly.
In addition, it was said that the longer you were knocked out afterwards, the stronger your protection was. The recent record was a month, held by the Lady Lina Aaderon a hundred years ago when a young, arrogant man from the house of Edgecombe attacked her unwittingly and consequentially was put to death (those who feel sorry for him say he was drunk and out of his wits).
There had not, of course, been any other recording of so long a slumber, at least not in the last several hundred years While Hermione was spending her quiet days recovering in the library, she soon found the research on this untamable defense mechanism was completed to her satisfaction and she began skimming the library shelves for other material.
Elizabeth was not going to let her out of the mansion, nor house any parties, until she was "fully recovered". (This in social terms meant until nearly the end of the summer.)
Among her reading Hermione found a book entitled Infallible and Inadmissible Witches which date about twelve hundred years back. The author, a staunch pureblood, told story upon story of the 'good pureblood lasses and the bad'. Hermione found the stories of the good girls to be quite boring, normally they would follow their etiquette and marry a wealthy boy, bringing pride to their family. It was the inadmissible ones that fascinated her. . .
. . . Long before Merlyn, or yet even Zeus, when Helios of Thernidar, descendent of the Greek gods themselves, came into old society, he was of the most highly regarded house and status. He was charming and wanted, invited everywhere from the Irish to the Greek courts. After his first season he was named premier couple with the beautiful daughter of M. Copalia. Not surprising, he announced their marriage not long after and had the largest recorded celebration, at the foot of Mt. Olympus.
As he was the sole descendent of the house he expected to gain many sons and carry the grand house of Thernidar into the future. The dream was not to be, however, as his wife perished at the birth of his daughter, given the name of Eris Circe of Thernidar, which meant strife.
Not wanting anything to do with the girl, her father locked her away on the island of Aeaea in the Thernidar's castle. She was never brought out, constantly being bred for her entrance into society, tutored in magic, the arts and every imaginable subject by the finest available. As she grew, she became the exact copy of her mother, down to the last detail. When the time came for her to be presented to society, all expected her to be the perfect angel to be given to the purest man.
It is rumored that the reason for the revolt was rooted in her tutors; that they were not the best, though some say it was the aunt who raised her. Still others said it was the servants around her, that she had spent too much time locked on the island estate separated from other pureblood children. Whatever the cause, on her thirteenth birthday the girl revolted.
Eris Circe was to have a grand ball in France that evening announcing her coming into society and her engagement to the handsome Lord Black. The girl, however, never showed up. It was an unheard of disgrace in society. The clocked chimed away until, exactly an hour after she was supposed to have arrived; a single, tiny white owl came, letting a paper fall to the hand of her father.
The disgraced Lord Thernidar opened the letter to find his daughter's voice coming from the paper. The entire company turned to see the man with the red paper standing in shame as his daughter's voice rose over the hall.
"My father, I will not be attending tonight. Though I have never met you, I have always done as you asked. I have studied; I have learned my lessons of magic, history, and of etiquette. It is in my studies that I learnt of your society. Your society of close bred purebloods and subjection.
After learning of the liberties assigned to many in your society and those same which are denied to those such as myself, I cannot agree to join such a place. It is in my time on this prison that I have learnt to work alongside both men and women, and I am not going to let myself be oppressed in the society you so blatantly stand for.
Send my apologies to Lord Black, but I cannot and will not accept the hand of a man who I have never met nor consent to living in a patriarchical society. By the time you have heard this letter I will have completed making Aeaea unplottable, and so, I bid you adieu.
Circe of Aeaea."
The paper burned in Lord Thernidar's hands as it finished. Officials of society came to the Lord and took him away. Circe's deed left disgrace on the hands of the Thernidar line, and even after a younger brother to Lord Thernidar was born, the family was by that time fallen to eighth-tier obscurity.
Thernidar, with all his remaining life, searched for his daughter, not because he felt affection towards her, but because he wished to force revenge upon the ignorant girl who cost him his line. He was last seen wandering in Ireland, assumed to have perished.
Circe grew in her power after her disregard of society and had no trust in wizardkind. It was said that anyone with whom she disagreed found themselves transfigured completely mind-and-body into an animal that suited their nature. It was her legacy and it grew until, many years later, the woman who was now rumored an immortal goddess on her island, found herself with several new pigs in her yard. The motley bunch of sailors they had once been had so disgusted her that she hadn't hesitated to turn them into swine.
It was after she turned them into swine that she was found by Ulysses, a king trying to return to his own kingdom. Ulysses seduced her, and she let his men regain human form. It was in this time that she recordly had three sons, and even after Ulysses departed for his home, she raised them diligently. The half-bloods were never allowed into society, but it is said the descents of them are among us, found in the Danforth bloodline. . .
. . .One of the most feared inadmissible witches of ancient times was really of noble heritage. She was born to Lady Igraine, who was a daughter of the Grenier family, and her first husband, Gorlois, Duke of Cornwell, who had ties to the Cornfoot family, a family of lesser rank in purebloods several decades ago. They have at the moment disappeared. Igraine had three daughters of Gorlois, yet the last, Morgaine, was the only magical one. It is suspected that the child was illegitimate, but never confirmed.
Morgaine grew a strange life, as Uther Pendragon, a muggle king, killed her father and took away her mother; causing her younger brother the muggle and later king Arthur to be born. Morgaine herself was taken by the High Priestess Vivane to Avalon, and trained in the magical arts there.
She became an avid healer, and took care of case after case of illness and injury. She became and animagus with the form of a raven and oft used it to travel the countryside. She was married off to the esteemed Urien of Gore (whose house later changed the name to Goyle), and produced a son.
At the same time Morgaine was raised in Avalon, her younger brother Arthur was raised by Merlyn in Camelot. Merlyn taught the young Arthur the good ways of muggle and magical communication, many languages, arithimacy, history and how to correctly rule a country and interact with its people.
The young Arthur took his lessons well, and when his father died he peaceably took power and raised the kingdom to its golden age, transferring us to Christianity and a significant muggle-magical cooperation era.
It was at this time that something horrible was revealed. One of Morgaine's sons, Mordred, was in fact not the son of her husband but that of her half-brother Arthur. If that was not enough to push her out of society, she left her husband in pursuit of one of her brother's knights.
After she was shunned from court the lady returned to Avalon and, in wake of the High Priestess' death, took power as queen there. She enforced the pagan religions and the difference between muggle and magic. She believed in giving women the right to choose their own paths even without husbands, and consequentially hated the society Arthur had brought.
It was not much longer before her son Mordred grew and wanted to claim the throne of Camelot (as Arthur had no legitimate heir). Morgaine ruthlessly attacked the kingdom on the grounds that Christianity and the "Patriarchal" society of wizards and muggles alike was unhealthy.
She succeeded in her attempted and broke down the kingdom of the beloved King Arthur and his faithful court, destroying the round table and causing our society to go into hiding for quite awhile until she faded back into the mists of Avalon and Avalon faded out of its own mists. The sons of her legitimate marriage continued into the Goyle and Parrol lines of today . . .
. . . In Irish lore there is tell of two women, both disgracing society, but to different degrees. Queen Maeve Connacht was a princess of Ireland and began what is now the Bleclé line. She was married to multiple husbands, each after the other died. She did not believe it her place beneath her husband, and always demanded equal financial share. When her husband Ailill mac Mata of the O'Connor line did now dutifully share with her, she arranged for his death.
She had seven sons, each of the sons named Maine, as a prophet told her he son Maine would kill Kind Arthur of Britain's son and leave the kingdom open for conquer. She had one daughter, Findabair, who also disregarded society. Maeve offered Findabair to seven men at once, each thinking they would be the sole receiver of her, and thus was attacked by the seven kings. Findabair herself died of shame.
Maeve did, in the process of shaming society, teach many young witches and wizards the basics of learning. Including lessons in potions, charms and transfiguration, Maeve set a basic example for what education should consist of.
Much before Maeve, another Irish woman, Cliodhna, was born. Though her own heritage was uncertain, and rumored to be of the gods, she was married into the Fawcett line. Or rather, she was supposed to. She defied her suitor and left society to study healing. She gained, on her journey, the ability to transform into a beautiful bird, and attracted three other magnificently rainbow birds to her flight.
She, along with her three birds, used song and the fruit from an otherworldly tree to heal countless beings. She later fell in love with a muggle, Ciabhan. She drowned in her sleep one night as what is now known as Tonn Chlíodhna passed by. She left no descendents . . .
It seemed, as Hermione read on, that really the witches in this book, the ones that the author hated, where amazingly strong women. It made her wonder if there had been any strong women changing society recently.
So, and incredible thanks to Flo, for sticking with me, and for all the random reviewers who have ever-so-politely reminded me to update. Good Night, everyone!