Chapter Forty | The Turning Point

"So, you're incredibly strong."

"Yes."

"Immortal?"

"Yes."

"And… killed a- a god?"

"It's the word Yharnamites use, and… She was about as close to a god as we can get, so, yes."

Minerva - she had insisted Catherine call her by her first name - had long forgotten her second glass of firewhisky (not whiskey she had argued, the true Scottish single malt) and looked for all things a woman of little scruples, so distant from the dour and matronly aura that normally clouded her.

It was now seven in the morning.

Thoughts of death still danced their merry jig in Catherine's head, her clothes were tacky with dried sweat, and there was a stench about her that reeked of wine and something coppery. This, she had to admit, was still one of the strangest experiences of her life.

"I've cancelled my classes for the day."

"Are you allowed to do that?"

"No."

She nodded slowly as Minerva fiddled with the bottle, tempted to reach across the desk and snatch it from her steely grip. Not to stop the woman from drinking but to dull the screams in her mind, the waving hand of Amelia and poisonous screeches of Djura. Gascoigne was silent, looking over the proceedings with solemn understanding written in his every muscle.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize to me, Catherine. You've done nothing wrong."

"Ha!" She barked, the noise ripping from her throat and leaving it sore. She didn't notice. "You have no idea what I've done."

"I too have seen war. I lived through the Blitz, the Blood War, and I know what's brewing in the shadows. I'm in the Order for good reason, and it's because I can't leave well enough alone."

"Have you slaughtered entire villages because you could? Torn a man's throat out with your teeth, all because you wanted to have a set of directions?"

McGonagall paled at her words, bottle shaking in her hands as she pushed it around the table.

"I enjoy the fighting. The killing. I'm not human anymore, Minerva." And she bared her teeth, sharp fangs glinting in the torchlight. Her hand raised to prick a finger against the bone, blood welling at the cut. "I could lift you and your chair with one arm, I can move across this room in the blink of an eye. What's been done to me has changed me, turned me into something that can kill gods. If you pulled out my guts right now I'd hardly notice it.

"I don't… I don't say this to hurt you, but to make you understand. This isn't like war. It's too savage, too unearthly to be compared. Maybe before I stumbled across Rom and- and-" her eyes vibrated in her skull, blood welling in her ears. "Slew Her, it could be like war. But after that?" Catherine coughed into her fist, shoulders heaving as she spattered red against the wrinkled flesh near her thumb.

The wine, it seemed, still fought to come up.

"After that… I don't know what to expect anymore."

Pushing the bottle aside, Minerva adjusted her glasses, frail fingers clenching white at the thin lines of metal that ran behind her ears.

"I'm sorry, my dear. No one should ever go through such a thing, and it pains me to realize how out of hand things have become without my noticing." Her hand lowered to clutch desperately at the fabric of her robes, just above her heart. "You've been forced to grow up so quickly and so awfully… I look at you and hope to take the world from off of your shoulders, to see the child I once knew staring back at me."

Exhaling, Catherine shut her eyes tight, brow wrinkling and cheeks pinching with the effort of it. "I know. I shouldn't have-" another deep breath, "I shouldn't have said that. I… I don't know who I am anymore, and it frightens me."

To lose herself, to Ascend and become one with the burning sky, the cold and endless void. The stars themselves called out to her. She could feel it in her bones, a siren song ringing like bells in the night, yearning for one they may call family.

"I don't know who I'm going to become, and I think that frightens me more."

"It's a terrifying prospect that none your age should deal with, but… a young woman you've become, and regardless of how monstrous you view yourself to be, know that I'm proud to see you standing tall against it."

A few tears slipped from Catherine's eyes, and she brushed them away with the back of her hand, a scowl on her face. "Voldemort, then."

"Yes… that. You said he'd been to Yharnam as well?"

"It broke him, like it did me. I don't know what he saw, but I know that when he came out of it, whatever monster he'd become had had its seed planted."

"It's worrisome to try and picture him as anything but the monster he is, but it would be dishonest of me to pretend that monsters are something born, and not often created."

"If I were anyone else… I think I would have become like him." Catherine's hands trembled as she voiced aloud her fears, twitching towards the crystal decanter. She didn't want to explain what truly worried at her conscience: that whatever had broken Tom Riddle was still waiting for her.

Was it the Nightmare? Another realm fashioned by one of these gods designed to bend and break the feeble mind of man? Or was it simply that the experiences of that wicked place had caught up to him and sank their unfeeling teeth into his soul and being, tearing all that he was to shreds?

Would that be her fate? Or could it be avoided by choosing to cram her brain into a grinder and let it pour out the other side, a mish-mash pulp of blood and pinkened flesh, taking it back up in her hands to press it together into the shape of her broken self like a child fumbling with clay?

A hurried banging on the door made the two of them jump in their seats, McGonagall whisking away the bottle and glass while Catherine cast cleaning and freshening charms on herself, finally remembering that she could magic away most of the grime that clung to her with a wave of her arm.

"Come in," McGonagall announced, the door immediately swinging open to reveal a flushed Umbridge, scratching at her face and rearing back as she set eyes on Catherine.

"What is she doing here?" the woman hissed, eyes darting back and forth across the room.

"I'm having a chat with one of my students, Dolores. Must I justify that to you?"

"Don't speak to me like that! You're…" she trailed off as she remembered Catherine was sitting in front of her, pupils shrinking as the obvious memory of her threats washed over the woman. "Enough! I just came to say that I need to- to take a day for myself, and thought I'd make you aware of this."

"Are you feeling ill, Dolores? I'd suggest checking in with Poppy."

Baring her teeth, Umbridge practically growled. "I'm fine! Just fine! And- and Potter, your detention this evening is cancelled. The same with the rest."

A frown on her face and blinking slowly, Catherine simply let out a muted, "Alright," as she watched Umbridge hurry from the room.

"That was…"

"Strange?"

"Very much so. Don't think I didn't notice how scared she was of you. Did you threaten her?"

Catherine inclined her head. "Something like that."

"So… you threatened her."

"Told her I'd feed her to the acromantula if I caught her torturing students."

Waving her hand, McGonagall wandlessly summoned the tumbler back over and took a sip from it, lips pulled back against her teeth as the liquor settled over her tongue. "I can't say the thought hasn't crossed my mind, but, I imagine it's a far more tangible threat coming from you."

Choosing not to agree with her statement, Catherine simply shrugged. "Blood quills on students. The first detention I had coming back from Yharnarm I ended up writing until I could see my knuckle-bones. She was more squeamish than anything, not from the act of torture but the result it brought about."

A low snarl emitted from Minerva's throat, and she looked tempted to throw her glass against the wall. "That vile, repugnant hag."

"You didn't know? I came into your office, hand wrapped in bandages, and you didn't know?"

Minerva had the courtesy to look ashamed at Catherine's admission, fingers curling around the glass protectively. She opened and closed her mouth a few times, before hanging her head. "I believe I was trying to convince myself otherwise. That such a thing wasn't happening beneath my nose, just as I had the last dozen times you'd come to me for help." Her head raised, eyes swimming with grief. "I've failed you so many times Catherine. How… how can you sit here with me and speak as though that hasn't been the case?"

"Because…"

Well, to be honest Catherine didn't really know. She wasn't one to hold a grudge, not when the circumstances of her life were so painfully strange that even she spent half of her time doubting that any of it had ever happened. Catherine couldn't imagine the rumours that spread around her, tales of basilisks and Voldemort… it was all so fantastical and ridiculous that it hardly seemed worth mentioning. Not to mention, it wasn't that she was angered by Minerva, nor was she forgiving of her, the same as when Dumbledore revealed his mistakes with her upbringing and time at Hogwarts.

She felt… apathetic, if she were to speak the truth.

So much had happened that at this point a little passive negligence was the least of her worries. At least now McGonagall was trying to apologize, to make amends for her misgivings and hands-off approach to not just Catherine, but all of her students, resigning from one of her dutiful positions so as to spend more time working with those under her care and offer them the most that she could.

No. Minerva was trying, and that was all she could ask for.

"Because you're doing your best, and to be honest? I don't really care what happened at this point. I'm so far past all of it that it just seems like a dream - something that happened to another person. For you, it's been maybe two months since I walked into the Great Hall and forced myself to talk with Dumbledore. When you spoke up on my behalf. For me? It's been almost half a year, maybe longer…" she clicked her tongue and suddenly felt a craving for something she'd never tried before, that cigarette hanging off the lips of a dead man, smoking quietly beneath a moonlit sky. "...it's all a blur of gore to me. I've trawled through a fraction of that city and only found monsters, and even now I still have so much to look for. It's not your fault that my life is one mishap after another, and in any sane world you wouldn't be faulted for not noticing the, frankly, ridiculous happenings that follow me everywhere. So… why should I be angry with you for it? It seems best to leave it all behind."

Something about her speech made Minerva both straighten her back and sink deeper into the grief that surrounded her. "Your words are… far too mature for a girl of your age, but, what with the story you've weaved…" She sucked air through her teeth, working her shoulders as if to shrug off the cold. "I'll do my utmost to be the woman I was supposed to be, rather than the one I've been. I can't say that I'm comfortable with the path that I see ahead of me, but it's the path that I'll take all the same." Raising her glass, Minerva toasted Catherine, knuckles white and standing out against the amber liquor within. "I'll take that path not because my hand has been forced but because I want to. For your sake, Catherine."

"You don't have to. Really, you don't. It's…" Catherine chewed on her lip, ignoring how if she looked past the wavering forms of those killed at her hand, she could see the pale reflection of her ghost staring back at her. An echo of herself, drowned in blood and a rain of steel.

That girl on a boat, lost to the trample and roar of duty foisted onto her future self. Lost to a blessing - a curse - beyond the ken of any mortal man. She looked at Catherine through the shadows, past the cutting morning light that shone through the window and carved the room in twain. She looked at Catherine and nodded her head.

Let her choose, she said. Do not let this curse take any more.

"I'd rather you didn't."

"What? I'm sorry, but you cannot expect me not to act after hearing a tale like that."

"You may think you know what you're getting into but I promise you this is far more damning than anything you've ever encountered." Setting her hands on the table, Catherine gripped, the wood screaming beneath her grasp. "I wanted you to know because you deserve to know. You deserve not to be left in the dark while I wither away in front of you and one of your closest friends hides that fact at every step.

"Dumbledore - Albus - if I knew where this road would take me I'd never have asked for his help. As soon as he knew I should have run into the forest and never looked back, begged him to tell you all that I hadn't survived the fall. Letting you pretend I'm missing, dead, or worse, would be far safer for you than my being in your lives, not just for your body but for your mind."

"You cannot say that-"

"I can. Because it's true." Swathed in magic and the echoes of the Blood, Catherine stared deep into Minerva's eyes, catching the sharp flinch and sudden guilt that washed over the woman. "You deserve to know, but taking part in this? I won't doom you as well. Help with Voldemort, help with Britain, but Yharnam is something I can't let you aid me in."

Lips pulling back, ever so slightly, a sliver of Minerva's teeth shone. "You're still a child, Catherine, and I'll be damned if I let you deal with this with as little support as you already have."

I'm not thinking this through at all, she chided herself, a silent pulse of agreement washing over from Kos.

She couldn't help it though, running on instinct, unable to hold onto a single thought without it slipping through her fingers and bursting into a thousand, jagged fragments against the ground. Like a stampede, hundreds of thoughts dug their trails in her mind, stamping, straining, hollering for attention and begging her to turn every which way.

To stay. To go. To run. To hide. To seek warmth and love and comfort, or to bury herself beneath the sand and let the waves eat at her prison, to put nature itself to the task and dare it to carry her bones away.

Everything was too much. Too little. Dead to the world yet every nerve in her body burned so harsh and bright that she wondered how no one could see the single, pallid drop of divinity that flowed through all their veins.

Oedon, Father of All, we beseech you for your guidance.

Prayers sung and slaughter offered. Animals, men, children, none safe from the silent call of their god above and yet one lonesome woman, some paleolithic thrall had dared to ask a single question.

And here they were. Here she was, sitting in a castle, asking one of the few people to ever offer her genuine kindness - though it came far too late - to stop. To go. To leave her to her misery, something that had become a weapon for her to wield against the white cloaked strangers that wished her dead.

It was entirely selfish of her, that she knew, to not ask but demand Minerva leave her feet planted in the land of the living, somewhere clean of the horrors that Yharnam had wrought.

All that, a million warring voices, and she had finally made her decision.

"You'll be damned if you help me. I won't let that happen. Not to you, not to anyone."

Getting to her feet, Catherine removed her hands from the table, splinters falling at her feet. Wand still looped in her belt she ran her finger over the desk, wood flinging itself up from the floor and embracing the home it had been torn from, melting back together in the blink of an eye.

"I'm sorry."

With that she left, leaving a stuttering McGonagall behind to nurse her drink and wonder on whether if she had noticed earlier, forced herself to talk, Catherine would not have marched from her office like a woman walking to her death.

Was she not? What could apotheosis truly be if not the annihilation of the self?

Had she traded suicide, that cold comfort that lay waiting in black water and dizzying heights, a sharp wind in her hair that cut like the knives that haunted her dreams, for but another form of silence? Was it because she couldn't die that the thought of it appealed to her so? Was it because it was not death, not final and absolute in the most empty of senses that it made her heart beat out of tune and wrap her very being with biting cords of terror?

It was a garrote around her neck that whispered as it sloughed through bone and tendon, speaking soft words and empty kindness, a pithy quip for every inch it dug.

It will be like it never happened. You never existed. In a blink, all of it gone. Gone, gone, gone, gone, sinking so deep that no adventurer shall ever touch the bloated remnants of Catherine Lily Potter.

A hel of heaving brine and sharp-toothed, glowing things made of scale and claw was all that awaited her, no matter her choice, creeping up like the glaciers that floated over top - silent until the moment they bore down upon her, creaking and shuddering against their own frigid greatness.

Was it even a choice? Or was she simply doomed from the moment Kos caught her voice drifting through a crack in the universe? That mark on her forehead singing in harmony, bearing with it a letter stamped and sealed with the writ of her inevitable executioner.

No longer did life bear her in its palm, nor did death keep its watch, waiting at the final door with its hand on the knob, serene as it listened for a single, solemn knock.

Limbo was a hell unto itself, particularly when one's steps were dogged by the Truth, and all that came with it.

Oh how it snarled, barked, nipped at her heels, muscles torn and bloody imprints marking every step on her path to damnation. Oh, how sweet it was.

And those steps took her to the last place she wanted to go, standing in the common room awning as Hermione looked down at her.

There never was a moment where Hermione wasn't taller than her. Catherine ailing, parched by a lifetime of scraps, had never quite grown in the way she should. Even now with magic in her veins and not a hint of food to be found she had only grown out, muscles thickening and skin clinging tighter to the ribbons they formed.

"I think we should talk."

As Hermione's features crumpled with understanding, tears biting at her eyes and lower lip trembling, Catherine knew she was making the right choice.