Eyes of Thunder
Part 2: Genocide
By Nyx [nyxfics@hotmail.com]
A/N: This is my first long fic. Please read and review, telling me what I can improve on.
The next part will be from Professor McGonagall's point of view.
Disclaimer: I own them. I own them all. And yet... somehow... I control them not... ::snif:: Story is (c) Nyx 2000, as is any original characters.
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Queen of a Thousand Eyes
Professor Trelawney in her purple robes and purple scent of incense. She came to me last night, came to me and kept the dreams away. I fell down in Divination a few days ago and that was why she sent for the men from the Ministry, that was why, and she hoped that I might be able to tell them something. She was not her airy-fairy self and I don't know why, but I'm grateful, so grateful that she is keeping me safe from the dreams.
You're special, she told me, and her yellow robes fluttered with a waft of patchouli as she sat down on my bed. It reminded me of far away, of Egypt where we went three summers ago. You need to be careful. Those Ministry men, they want to keep us safe, but if you can't tell them you don't have to. And that is how it goes, and you are the Queen of a thousand eyes, you can see anything and hide anything. You are in charge. And so she told me, and I slept fine, and if I dreamed I didn't remember.
In the morning she was gone, but the incense smell still lingered. Purple robes. Purple smell. Overgrown butterfly Professor Trelawney, keeping me safe from the dreams and the eyes that watch me, the eyes and the voice I cannot place. Why does it still haunt me then? Why can I not let it go? I don't want the dreams. But the dreams want me.
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Hallows
The pumpkins are big this year, that's what Hagrid said. The pumpkins are big, and he gave me a seed that was as long as my thumb. That's how big they are, big enough for those seeds! The orange pulp was in big heaps by his cottage and made the air smell like pumpkin juice, and he brought the pumpkin back to the castle, his nose just on top of it like a little red cherry. If Hagrid was older he would be Santa Claus.
Hagrid's pumpkin garden is big and dark, and there are lots of little shadows between the biggest pumpkins that are hallows. I call them hallows to myself, when I think that nobody can hear. Hallows. And on All Hallows' Eve the world is a hallow, the little shadow between the big pumpkins, and everything magical happens.
October 31. 10-31. And this year Friday 10-31. It will be a day of power, even more than 10-13, which everyone knows is the best day for hexes in the year. Friday 10-31 will be a day for great things to happen.
Sometimes great things happen, but nobody notices. I wonder if they happen even when it's not the right day. I never noticed before.
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And Then There Were None
Genocide in London.
There they were, and then they were not. I knew through the Halloween feast that something was wrong; I had goose pimples all up and down my arms and legs, and I felt as though the cold autumn air was sneaking in through cracks in the Great Hall. Finally I shuddered and my teeth were chattering, and Téa who was walking past to find some more pumpkin juice noticed and Madame Pomfrey took me up to the hospital wing. Only there wasn't much she could do. Hot cocoa only made me worse and ice packs froze me, and I lay under the covers of a bed curled up in a tiny ball.
Professor Trelawney, Professor Trelawney, where are you now? Surely you can feel it too. And I can hear the words that Madame Pomfrey said as she passed by the bed - You-Know-Who back, it's too late for those poor Muggles, four hundred killed, a hundred more missing, what by the gods are we going to do? They run through my head incessantly although I tell them to stop. Professor! Only I know she can't feel it, or she'd be in the hospital wing too, as miserable and cold as I.
I've heard of the massacres of the past. World War II, where they slaughtered people because they were Jews or gay. Tazmania - and somewhere something tells me that that was the only genocide that worked, the only one that survived. There has never been a magical war that was big. And I shudder again, and feel my muscles begin to tense and relax - what is happening, my God, what's happening, but all I wanted was my own place and a house-elf, this doesn't help - only I can't find my mouth anymore. My body twists and turns and when I try to stop it it hurts - Madame Pomfrey yelling that she's siezing, she's seizing, grand mal, it's got to be, someone hold her down, no you idiot not a body-bind that will hurt her, and then even her voice is gone, just for a second, and I am plunged into glorious silence for a fleeting moment.
::wormtail::
Screaming, loud, and hands pushing me down - someone trying to hold my head but I break free and thrash it from side to side - get me out of this!
::you are my servant wormtail::
The Necromancer, the Necromancer, I hear myself saying. But what am I saying? It's not me, is it? And I hurt all over, I need to be free - why are they holding me? I can't move, I can't move, I need to move -
::you die for me now wormtail::
And the world explodes in a burst of bright blue light.
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Professor's Secrets
Professor McGonagall is hiding again.
Oh, she's not hiding like running away or anything. She's hiding behind a mask of sorts, hoping that nobody will put on their witch sight and see her as she truly is - not the mask she's projected, but her real face. I think she uses the mask most of the time. She had it on in my first year, but I barely notice even, just remembered it today and thought about her so-stern self.
Today she's just a little woman, not the proud perfect Minerva M. McGonagall we see most days. There are tears on her face and I can tell that her voice is hitching and sore with my witch sight on - because of course witch sight means hearing, too. What are you crying about? I want to ask her. Why are you crying? But of course that's not an option - I mean, what would happen if I tried it? She would deny it, of course, tell me I needed to work on my witch sight, and go off on her sad way.
Who else is like her? I wonder to myself. How many things do we not see? How many secrets can one person keep? I have never kept a secret, at least, not one like how I feel. Am I the only one?
There are more questions than answers. The world is like that.
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Crackdust, Black Dust
There's black dust in the air. There was when I got summoned out the the greenhouses to talk to Professor Sprout and find out if I might have eaten something to cause the seizure I had - because that's what it was, seizure, an ugly word that scrapes against my mouth.
The dust clogged my nose, my mouth; it grated against my eyes, assaulting them like a thousand tiny razors. I remember bending over at the waist, pulling my hair blindly around my face, and groping for the door-handle, but I don't remember any more. Fainted. A Ravenclaw - Marjorie Majors, I think her name is - saw me staggering in, and she said I was gasping for air, blue in the face, covered in black. Quick thinker, Marjorie Majors, looked to see if there was something in my mouth. Somehow she got the dust out of my mouth, and I started breathing again. And that's when I remember again, the pile of spit and dust on the parquet floor, dust like fine sand, black fine sand.
Madame Pomfrey wanted me to go back up to the hospital wing but I wouldn't let her. No, no thank you, I said, and pulled my sweater a little tighter around me. I'm fine. I'll just go wash off. The dust was everywhere and I scrubbed to get it off me in the showers, only it made my skin as red as my hair and redder. I was scoured from head to toe, but I was clean, and breathing.
In, out, in, out. It's such a fragile thing, the lungs and heart and life.
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Extremities
Wirft zie auf die Fenster, Gretel says, and the firework flies out the window like that. Gretel was a transfer from Durmstrang - her and her brothers, Jakob said Yakkob and Jan said Yan when they came to England from Germany - and she is very good at moving things around. That's what my - ah - talent is, she says often. Haltingly. Just because she won't take a language spell. I don't need a wand for spells, no, just my finger.
Lemme tell you. I was four years old and they laced a unicorn hair through that finger. I don't believe her, but then she's so serious that I have to, she's showing me a tiny puckered scar on the fingertip. That's where, and presses on it. A spark shoots out, falls on my arm, burns it a little before I smother the flame. She doesn't know why, just that it was her Mama's friend that did it, her Mama's friend who is dead now from the riots in Berlin years ago.
Dark magic, I tell her, and I try pressing on the scar. I can't touch it, can't do anything without feeling a bolt of lightning right down my arm and into my gut. Yep, Dark magic all right.
Don't tell me about Dark, she whispers at me, and now she is shivering like I was at the Halloween feast. Dark is me, was me, will be me. If I let it be. Geneva and Anjy come in with their heavy backpacks from the Jokers' Club that was Fred and George's last gift to the school, and trailing behind them is Aggie coming from somewhere else.
Aggie and Gretel are together, at least when nobody can see, keeping it away from other people. Nobody in our dorm room minds, because it's not like they're all over each other. Just Aggie and Gretel, hug and a friendly kiss every once in a while. Best friend necklaces that mean more than best friend. And Ginny Anjy Geneva keeping the secret, for now.
Ginny, Anjy, Geneva, Aggie, Gretel. G's and A's this year. We're closer than sisters, closer than friends, the Gryffindor crew. And Gretel and Aggie are safe with us, but I'm sure that if they weren't Gretel's magic finger could take care of it.
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The Anasazi
Cold blue eyes, pale, stormy, the color of the sky. Cloudy sky. Icy eyes, eyes that scare me. And it was not, not mine, only it was mine because I had seen it to be so.
That - is - so, that - is - so, says the grandfather clock in the corner. That - is - so. And it must be so.
I can't imagine, though, the softness that the voice suddenly gained with those eyes. Not the voice in the prophecy, not the person to whom the eyes belong. It's not the same; he's a Slytherin, and that voice wasn't a Slytherin's. Not. Slytherin. Only there's something, something in the back of my mind. You are a Slytherin, you know it. The eyes are Slytherin so why are you afraid.
The insides of my eyelids are sparkling with colors and I open them quickly. Quickly quickly quickly before they explode. Bright colors still dance, bright colors, against the moving black of the robes in the Great Hall. They fly over heads, over Téa's and Harry's and Manta's, dancing still, until I lock eyes with the one I fear most, Draco Malfoy...
...the one who fears me?
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finis part 2
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List of Vingettes:
Queen of a Thousand Eyes
Hallows
And Then There Were None
Professor's Secrets
Crackdust, Black Dust
Extremities
The Anasazi
Notes on the text: Any misspelling of German words is my fault, as is any bad grammar. I'm not very good at German; I've only been taking it for two months! The name Anasazi is the name of an Indian tribe in New Mexico; however, the name was given to them by a rival tribe, and means "Ancient Enemy." Lots of "Indian names" are like that; the explorers were exceedingly dumb and we still use their dumb names. This was a short part, but I needed to get done with it. Ginny has no more to say right now; we're moving on to McGonagall.