Chapter Thirty-Nine | A Dash of Whisky
It took her a few hours to sober, to flush the poison from her mind and let the drip and patter of her sanity fling itself back up off the floor and into her ears, mouth, eyes, scouring through her veins like the brush of a rose - sharp with thorns yet so graceful and pure in its beauty. She had spent that time wrestling with the world as she knew it, a modern atlas born to bear the weight of so many stars.
Like terror given life, it snatched at the fabric of her soul with greedy fingers. The knowledge of what could be. What she could very well become. Claws sank deep and tore ragged gouges in the curled, wrinkled meat of her brain. A path to the underbog of reality, filled with nothing but the gnarled roots of a bush, that rose bush, so very different from the crown it wore.
The Truth; a soliloquy of the damned borne from their unearthly knowing.
Kos had spoken it in hushed, fervent tones, weaving her tale of a world that was, and never would be. They had caressed her with featherlight touches that were so fleetingly brief that she would have thought she'd imagined the feeling if it wasn't for the presence of it. How those words, each one not a word but a person in and of itself, a beautiful lattice of sound and feeling that encapsulated everything it stood for, the personification of raw emotion. How those words sang to her.
The word Oedon carried with it a sense of emptiness, vast beyond imagination that settled on her shoulders with all the gravity and gravitas of which it deserved. Humanity brought to mind filthy, beautiful things, all sweat and anger, an ingenuity about them that spoke of one part cleverness and the other a stubborn streak that would leave an ass barking its annoyance to have had its title stolen away without so much as a 'thank you.'
But dear, oh dear - the word Hunter. It made her forehead itch, turned her blood to ice in the same moment it forced it to boil over, the pot lid jumping as it tried to contain the adrenaline addled mania that threaded to spill over the sides and crackle along the stovetop.
Language was a powerful thing. A force to be revered, now that Catherine knew how it could shift the air, cause blood to pool in her eyes and drop so soft and slow to the carpet at her feet, leaving tracks on her cheeks as her thoughts carried her far from Hogwarts and into a world so far removed from existence as to stretch reality about those who so much as payed it mind.
Out of the Room of Requirement she stumbled, her gut a churning ocean still filled with blood and wine, waves peaking to crash back down once again and send a river of nausea up through her throat, an acrid tang exhaled with each breath as she fought to keep it all down.
Catherine didn't know what to do.
So much power, everything she could ever want offered to her on a silver platter. But the repercussions of such a choice were cataclysmic, world-shattering in their immensity. All her life, all anyone's life, the decisions they made were naught but an infinitesimal speck of dust in comparison.
Not even dust. The shreds of dust, so small that even the light of the sun could not cast shadow in their wake in a way the eye could see. Mites and microbes and little, whirling things made of pure energy, bouncing around in a vast expanse of nothingness. That was the result of their decisions, something to be long forgotten, truly dead - not that falsity of rotting bodies or ashen bones - but the death of a name. The death of a memory.
Who could Catherine name? How many could she look back on through the war-torn annals of history and remark upon their existence?
Nothing but words on a page, immortal in the stain of ink and the nigh invisible ripples that they had cast out across one lonely planet in a roiling sea of black. These were their great and wondrous, all but sacks of meat and blood reduced even further to a footnote in the mind of a child. Something to be dredged up with a sense of derision, mild-mannered annoyance at even being dared to remember such a thing as the most influential to have ever lived. The very people who had formed the society they lived in, for better or for worse.
She herself would end up as one of those people. She already was.
In Europe her name was commonplace. Britain and its surrounding isles looked on her with reverence or disgust depending on the mood that struck them that fine, rainy day. Maybe it had something to do with the phases of the moon, or whether she'd chosen a shower or bath the night before. Like a hummingbird, the residents of that cold island tucked against the neck of a continent - distant as if a jilted lover - they flitted between doting or damnation.
The French. The Spanish. The Germans and beyond, Catherine was a spot of trivia. An anomaly, some strange girl that the madmen across the pond held up as a living martyr, cheering for her existence in one breath and cursing her in the next.
Fleur and the rest of Beauxbatons had looked at her strangely once they'd realized who Catherine was. Curiosity with just a splash of starry-eyed wonder.
There she sat. The Girl-Who-Lived. Nothing but a moniker and tall tales spread from ear to ear until they were nothing but a mess of homophones and blatant lies.
Durmstrangs looks were distant and contemplative, their thoughts running wild with what could have been, had it not been for the roll of the dice that resulted in her existence. Laid low by Grindelwald, the Baltics - where so many of their students called home - had been sundered with the thunderous march of his warband. And up north. Far, far north, where the school laid its roots and let its towers reach to the sky, surrounded by the sprawling mountains that curled around Sarek, they had been beset once more.
Voldemort could have very well done the same. Threatened to, until one day he dropped dead in the middle of a nursery, while an infant wailed over the corpse of her mother.
But that's all she was to them. To all of them. A name and a face and a mark on the page.
Would her tale linger? Or would she be another complaint on the lips of children two hundred years from now as they tried to remember what damnable thing she had done to warrant even a page in their two-galleon tomes.
A strange sound echoed from her throat as she slowly made her way to nowhere, simply walking and wondering on her lot in life. It took her a moment to realize that the hoarse grind of flesh on flesh that rattled in her chest was a laugh, hysterical and so stricken with confusion that the portraits watching her quailed in fright.
Immortality was already wrapped tight in her blood-soaked fist. And now, a god she may be, if only she wished for it.
A god. A god. A god, she cheered, letting the thought sink its cruel teeth in her soul and paint it in deep shades of gray. A God, she sobbed, thinking of the world she would be forced to leave behind.
Walking madness and monstrosity personified, never again would it be safe for her to set her feet (her claws, her slick and moon-soaked scales) on the land of the living, were she to take this gift and taste of its glory. Abhorrent and glorious she could be, touching the earth for a fleeting moment to grasp Voldemort in her undying hands and rend his existence in twain, feasting on the scraps of his soul that lay hidden away.
How could she say no? How could she say yes?
How could she pretend any longer that she was anything but a powder keg, fit to burst at the first sign of trouble?
Because she would take it in a heartbeat if it all came crumbling down. Leave her (im)mortal coil to dessicate far behind and journey into the great unknown.
But she wanted to stay, and in the same breath, she wanted nothing more than to cut ties with all her worldly comforts and love, hide herself until everything started making sense again. Hide until they forgot her, withered and died and left her truly alone and no longer without hesitance, so that she may up-end her soul and hand it over to the one who had been watching her since that fateful day when a man in black lit her room with the refulgent emerald of a dying sun.
Catherine wanted to die.
Wanted to leave all choice behind and wish that she would be so lucky as to scatter herself along the flagstones like a wooden doll, to be pounded and crushed into so many specks of dust and find no light nor darkness waiting for her on the other side. Instead, just the sweet embrace of an infinite nothing, her existence blotted out with a simple, final, and very abrupt dot at the end of a sentence no one wished to read.
Basic. Clean. Entirely befitting of the insanity that followed her every step.
Let me go out not with a bang, but with silence.
But she couldn't die, no matter how much she wished for it. So she squared her shoulders, plugged the hole in her throat that threatened to leak bile over her tongue and throbbing teeth, and decided then and there to pretend she had never been told such a thing.
Though her shoulders trembled and her neck bobbed as she fought to swallow down wine much too red, much too thick to be anything but a vampiric spirit, she pretended all the same. So by the time she stumbled into the Great Hall, empty bar Dumbledore and McGonagall, the two whispering amongst themselves, she hardly noticed the nostalgia that dripped from her sweat-soaked robes or the pale sheen of weakness that trickled down her brow.
"Ah, Miss Potter," McGonagall called, raising a mug of tea at her entrance and silently toasting her arrival. "It's good to see you."
A frown settled on Dumbledore's face, and he looked as if he wanted to beckon her over or shoo her away, to come and check on her at a better time.
"Hm?" Catherine hummed, finally realizing where she was. "Oh."
"Are you… quite alright? You look like you've had a rough evening."
"Minerva…"
"Albus look at the poor girl," she stated, leaning forward in her seat. "Please come here, dear."
Thoughts still a knotted mess of wire, electricity bouncing around inside her skull, Catherine stumbled over as gracefully as she could, salience slowly returning to her as she glanced down at herself and saw how ragged she truly was.
She looked like Sirius, when he'd once locked himself away in his room only to come out reeking of firewhiskey and still in yesterday's clothes.
Minerva let out a small noise of discontent as Catherine stepped up to the head table, her nose wrinkling. "Have you been drinking, Miss Potter?" She leaned further forward and sniffed loudly, her expression turning into utter shock. "Why… ten points from-"
Albus laid his hand on her arm, shaking his head softly. "Minerva… allow me to handle her punishment."
"You can't be serious."
"I am." His eyes wheeled over to Catherine, hesitance in his gaze. "Miss Potter has been through a lot these past few weeks, and-"
"And drinking, at her age, to drown it out? You intend to let me watch as my- my charge takes steps into burgeoning alcoholism? After what happened? Albus she's hungover!"
Her mind whirled as she watched the two argue amongst themselves, glancing around the Great Hall to see that they were the only three there, a muttered tempus revealing it was barely five in the morning.
"Professor-"
"Catherine you're worrying me deeply, I-"
"Shouldn't she know?"
"Know about what? Albus if I find you've been keeping secrets from me-"
Head pounding, she groaned quietly and slapped a hand to her forehead, only now noticing the throbbing pain that encompassed her brow. Such a thing had become an afterthought, what with losing limbs as often as one would stub their toe - agony became commonplace after a while, something to be easily ignored. But with the low growls of McGonagall slowly turning into shouts and the lingering remnants of last night's wine-fueled haze accompanied by thoughts that sheared reality itself, this was a headache that even she found debilitating, if only for the alienness of it.
Spots tracked across her vision, and Catherine found herself lurching towards the table and planting two fists against it for support, breathing harshly.
"Could you please be quiet?"
"Why-"
"Minerva," Dumbledore hissed, not with anger but concern. "Listen to her, please."
"Professor, I- Albus," she whispered, Professor McGonagall turning sharply at the use of the Headmaster's first name. "What's the harm in telling her?"
"None my dear, but it's your story to tell."
"Should we…?" Catherine gestured vaguely in the direction of Dumbledore's office, far up above, and the man nodded his assent.
"Please, Minerva, if you would follow us?"
The woman shot to her feet, still glowering, but her expression was borne of worry, that Catherine knew. "This better be an excellent excuse, Albus."
"I assure you, it is… most intense."
'Most intense?' Gascoigne asked beside her, appearing in a shimmer. 'He talks like a true Yharnamite. Are you sure you're from another world?'
"Yes," Catherine growled quietly, following the Headmaster to the side door, him waving his wand and something changing in the air. They stepped through into his office, Catherine silently thankful for Hogwarts magic and its ever-shifting pathways.
Dumbledore conjured two seats, slowly walking around the table to take his own. Exhausted, Catherine practically threw herself into the soft cushions, sending a side-eyed glance towards McGonagall as she primly set herself down, hands folded in her lap and wand-hand shaking.
"Well?" she barked, before taking a deep breath and letting her eyes close. "Forgive me, I've been tense of late."
"Don't really fault you for it," Catherine muttered in reply, watching dust motes dance across the room and feeling something of a kinship to them. "Everythings been all flavours of fucked for the last few months."
"Catherine!"
"I'm afraid you'll find that that's just the way our young protege speaks, Minerva."
"You can't possibly be encouraging that kind of language."
"I find that after you hear Catherine's story, you'll be uttering the same choice words she's been so fond of lately."
McGonagall's expression spoke of a vehement denial that she would ever deign to let such words tarnish her lips, but Catherine found herself agreeing with the Headmaster.
"So… I've uh-" She swallowed down bile, stomach roaring in protest from last evenings dalliances. "How do I even start?"
"I find the beginning suits most stories best."
Snorting, she let out a grunt of agreement. "A few months ago I went to sleep and I didn't wake up in Hogwarts."
"A student was kidnapped, and you told me nothing of it?"
"Minerva, listen."
Jaw shutting stubbornly, McGonagall inclined her head towards Catherine. "I'm sorry. Continue."
"I woke up… I woke up in another world entirely. A place called Yharnam. Something, a being called Kos, she reached out across dimensions and dragged me into it, so that I could escape the clutches of another like her, something much, much worse." Letting out a long, slow breath, Catherine focused on the swell of her diaphragm, her lungs filling and emptying and taking all her worries away with it. At least, she hoped it would take her worries with it, stubborn as they were. "Ever since then I've been fighting for a way to stop whatever curse holds me there. Every time I go to sleep, I wake up in Yharnam, and- and words can't even begin to describe the horrors of that city."
'You're the horror, girl! You're the monster in the night!'
'How dare you say such things about our Most Holy!'
'Fuck off, you bint!'
'Praise her, Djura! Praise her!'
Tugging at her hair, Catherine turned her head to face Minerva. "Beasts and nightmares are the only thing to be found in Yharnam. I've had to fight every minute of every day just to get by, and… and I'd only been in Yharnam all of eight hours before I died for the first time."
"What?"
"I can't die. Can't stay dead. I get killed and I wake up between worlds, in another place and another time."
"Headmaster, you can't be serious." McGonagall pointed at Catherine, her jaw hanging open. "She needs help. A mind healer- she's not alright!"
"Every word she speaks is true. You have my word, and my memories, if you wish."
"You- unethical doesn't begin to describe how wrong it is to look into a students head!"
"I asked him to. More demanded it, really."
"Regardless, that's not alright! Albus you can't be serious that everything she's said it's true! Another world? Beings?"
As McGonagall ranted at the man, Fawkes appeared and settled atop the headrest of her chair, trying to offer comfort. Catherine herself shrugged her shoulders and stood up, pulling a great hammer out of the stone and placing it on the table with a heavy thud, even the weighty desk itself groaning under the effort.
The room went silent as Minerva stared at the thing, before she spoke up. "An excellent bit of conjuration what with the mechanical bits and weathering, but that won't-" she choked on her words as, attempting to unravel the magic of the 'conjured' hammer, she found it to stubbornly refuse. Jabbing her wand a few times, twisting it, twirling it, nothing she did had any effect.
Cursing under her breath, she tried to lift it and move it out of the way, hissing when she couldn't so much as get it to budge no matter how hard she pushed or pulled.
"How?"
"It's my weapon. What I use when I'm there."
"It must weigh nearly a tonne!"
"Just over half."
"This is- this is outrageous! None of this can be true."
"Professor… Minerva. Please, look at me." Slowly the woman turned away from the Headmaster and looked into Catherine's eyes. "It's all true. Every word of it. It's why- it's why I threw myself off the tower. I was hoping… I was hoping that here, death would stick."
"Oh god." McGonagall's hand flew to her lips. "You didn't survive, did you? Those scars couldn't have come from falling… how could I be so blind?"
"What's more likely? I'm immortal, or I barely managed to survive the fall?"
Tears flew to Minerva's eyes. "You poor, poor girl. Oh- Catherine, I can't-"
"It's not your fault."
"I should have noticed! I should have seen!" Cradling her face in her hands, a loud sob shook McGonagall. "I should have known something was wrong!"
Wincing against the noise, Catherine awkwardly set her hand on the woman's shoulder, squeezing it with what she hoped was comfort. "No one could have predicted this. I- I couldn't, and the things I've seen…"
"You said her name was Kos?" Dumbledore asked.
"Yeah… I spent- I spent two months in the Dream, just- trying to hold it all together. She gave me her name then. We've… come to an agreement, I think."
Eyes flickering towards McGonagall, Dumbledore hummed. "And what would that be?"
"She wants my help, to put her child to rest."
"Is it…"
"Dead, but… not. He lingers, and if I help her, she helps me," she stated, lying through her teeth and praying that Dumbledore wouldn't notice.
"Beware of dealing with beings beyond our comprehension, Catherine."
"You think I don't know that?" she jibed, nostrils flaring as Fawkes barked out a worried squawk. "I killed one of them, Albus, and it broke me."
"Fuck."
They both whirled to look at Minerva, the curse flying from her lips with such vehemence and precision that it shook the room.
Suddenly, Dumbledore snorted at the ridiculousness of it all, while Catherine stood over the two and tried to hold down her anger and the sickness that lay coiled in her gut.
She truly had become cruel, in that moment wanting nothing more than to crush her fist against his cheek and scream her anger at him, to tell him of course she knew, how could he think her stupid after all this? That the true secret, the offering of divinity, was so calamitous as to leave her broken and drooling in a warm room as cold wine muddied her veins.
No, that was something to be kept close to her chest, never to be revealed until the very moment in which she made her decision, if that - instead of waiting until long after she had broken free of her flesh prison and spent a millenia recounting all that once made her human.
"It's insanity," were the words McGonagall finally mustered, having once more become capable of speech. "It's madness. I… how is any of this possible?"
"I don't think any of us know, nor can we know."
"It's beyond all of us," Catherine agreed.
"What- what can I... please, tell me what I can do to help."
"I don't know. Dumbledore-"
"Albus, please, you deserve that much," the man interrupted, raising his hand.
"-Albus, has been helping me with magic. Teaching me how to fight. But… there's those bits and pieces you mentioned," she said, directing her attention towards him. "Those need to go."
"Ah, yes," Dumbledore muttered, looking quite flustered as he readjusted his glasses. "I'd actually forgotten about those for a moment."
McGonagall raised her head. "Forgotten about what, Albus?"
"I've nailed down what it is exactly that allowed Voldemort to rise again after the last war and escape death." He swallowed heavily, squaring his shoulders as if to reassure himself. "Voldemort created numerous horcruxes, and has used them to shield himself from the world hereafter."
"I'm afraid I don't know what that is. I may have heard of it in passing, but it's escaped me."
"A soul container that prevents the main body of his soul from being carried into the afterlife."
Her gasp echoed through the room. "You mean to say…?"
"He tore his soul into pieces and hid it away. A frightful bit of magic, dark beyond imagining. The ritual it requires is horrific, to say the least, and I believe all of us can do without that specific bit of knowledge. Needless to say, before Voldemort can die, these pieces must be destroyed. In fact, two already have been, one of which I believe you'd recall."
"No! The diary that Ginevra found?"
"That same diary, I'm afraid. Fortunately, our resident swordmaster here took care of it."
It was Catherine's turn to snort. "Wonder if I could drag Godric's sword into that place. Basilisk venom might actually do me well, over there."
"It's worth thinking over." Dumbledore clasped his hands together with a slight clap. "Now, with that, I believe we should work on a plan not just to ease your path through Yharnam, but to deal with the fragments of Tom's soul that lay scattered about. Would you be amenable to that, Catherine, Minerva?"
Shakily, McGonagall nodded her head. "Anything I can do to help. And- and you-" she stated, pointing at Catherine. "The two of us are going to sit down when that discussion is over and you're going to tell me everything about that place. Afterwards, we're going to talk about my horrid treatment of you thus far, and- and I hope you would be willing to call me family, as I should have been."
Throat thick with nausea, Catherine agreed. "Yeah. That sounds good to me."
She didn't put voice to her thoughts of escape, to run far away from this place and detach herself from the earthly world as she knew it. With threats of godhood lingering over her shoulders, hanging above her head like the Sword of Damocles, Catherine knew that her friendships, her love could not withstand her inevitable choice, nor the road to it.
Hermione, forgive me, she whispered in her mind, dread filling her heart as she forced a smile on her face, a maddened grin directed towards McGonagall. "Let's figure this out."