by Katie Davidson (Virtue)
Elora sat in her room on a stool made of stone in front of a stone gray mirror dressing table. She wore a silk gray nightgown and she brushed her hair gently as she hummed a calming song as she watched the bristles of the brush glide delicately through her ebony hair, the white bangs shimmering in her reflection.
The door of her room opened, and Voldemort glided into her room, closing the door behind him. Elora noticed him enter her room, and she placed her brush down, staring at him in the mirror. "What do you want?" she barked. She didn't think much of the great Voldemort now, after he slapped her and pushed her into icy water.
Voldemort's pale lips curled into a grin as he said, "I just wanted to apologize, my lady."
"Apologize?" Elora shouted as she raised from the stool and turned to Voldemort. "Why would you apologize to me?" She emphasized on the 'you' as she turned and headed to the window of her room, keeping her back to Voldemort.
She stared out the window of her room, the dark sky that been clouded over turned shades of gray as her onyx eyes stared at them. A roar like thunder rang through the clouds, and quick flashes appeared through the darkness of the night. Elora could feel Voldemort stand behind her, his deep, cold breaths upon her neck, and his clammy arms wrapping around her waist, and his cold voice whispering into her ear, "You fascinate me, Elora. I can sense the darkness within you. You're different from any other female I've encountered. But why is it that it's you?"
"What do you mean?"
"A while ago I tried to destroy you, do you remember?"
"No, I don't know what you mean."
Elora could hear a low growl come from Voldemort. He grabbed her wrist and pulled her over to her bed and forcing her down on it, pinning her to it. "Of course you wouldn't remember," he snarled. "That's a part of the Loretrick spell."
"Stop it! You're hurting me!" Elora screamed, struggling to free herself from Voldemort's grasp.
Voldemort tightened his grasp upon her wrists, Elora screamed again… he closed his eyes, he loved the scream of a female, it calmed his nerves. Then suddenly, Voldemort felt the cold grip of stone against his back. Elora had retaliated and forced Voldemort back, across the room, and smashed him against the adjacent wall. She had had enough of his harassment towards her; she growled and picked him up by the collar of his cloak. A dark cloud waved over her onyx eyes.
Ahren burst into her room, stopping suddenly as soon as he say that Elora had Voldemort a foot off the ground again the wall by his neck. He leaned against the wall and laughed.
"Ahren! Get her off of me!" Voldemort choked.
Ahren wanted to keep a Kodak picture of this moment, but knew that it couldn't last, since Voldemort had a high part in this plan. "Elora, let him go," he said in a calm voice.
Elora then let go of Voldemort and backed off. Voldemort fell to the ground amongst the rubble that had fell from the wall when he hit it, he gasped to catch his breath, stood up, and growled to Elora, "You'll pay for this, girl!" He took his leave out the open door of her room. The harsh slam of the adjacent room's door was heard.
Ahren walked over to Elora and embraced her in his arms saying, "My daughter, your power is growing."
"I shouldn't have done that father." Elora said, looking her fathers' eyes. "But Voldemort... he..."
"Hush, my dear." Ahren said, holding her close. "I know. He's a snake if I've ever seen one, but be patient, my sweet. His time will come."
A loud, deep neigh was heard from the courtyard of Castle Gray. Elora ran over to the window, and in the dim light courtyard, she saw a full grown, black, winged unicorn. She cocked her eyebrows and the name, "Luno," came from her mouth.
She ran out of her room, down the steps, and into the courtyard of the castle. She wrapped her arms around the grand mare's neck and it neighed softly. Ahren stared at the winged creature from Elora's room window; he wondered where the creature came from, and why it was here, but it seemed Elora new the creature, so it was all right. He watched as she took the dark creature into the stables of the castle, and a soft lullaby echoed through the castle.
"Shoot." Harry exclaimed as the bottom of his cloak was being burned by flaming hot lava.
Harry and Cecil climbed the narrow path of a rock wall. They had entered the grounds of a Volcano, where they were to meet the Sun Queen.
"Harry, watch yourself." Cecil barked as Harry bumped into him.
"Sorry," Harry exclaimed. "Is it just me, or is this path getting smaller... and smaller... and smaller?" "We're almost at the end," Cecil comforted him as he turned the corner and entered a steaming tunnel. A river of molten rock swam past them on either side of the huge tunnel, creating a long, rocky path in the center of the tunnel, which extended a mile a head of them.
They started down the path. Sweat formed on their forehead, running down the sides of their faces, and creating sweat marks on their cloaks, which were unbuttoned to show the thin shirt underneath. They neared the end of the tunnel. Long stairs headed down through the darkness. Harry whined, "We have to climb all those?"
Cecil had already started down the stairs. Harry hesitantly followed.
Down...
down...
and down...
they walked.
As it grew hotter...
hotter...
and hotter...
until they reached the bottom.
A sudden cool wind fell upon their faces. Harry sighed under the coolness, "That's better."
Cecil grabbed his arm and pulled him forward, "We're almost there Harry. We can't stop now, understand?"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Harry replied. "How much longer?"
"Welcome," a voice echoed throughout the area. "To my home."
Harry's gaze rose up to the top of large platform where a tall woman wearing a bright red cloak sat. Her long, fiery red hair, the colour brighter than that of any of the Weasley's, flickered like fire uncontrollably. She stood up, holding a long staff where on the very top, a round flickering fireball (a miniature sun) spun. She glided down the steps of the platform to greet her guests. Her dark red eyes stared at them. Cecil bowed to the woman, and Harry followed, bowing to her.
"We have traveled many miles to seek audience of you, Queen Sundra." Cecil said.
Sundra nodded, "A knew this the first time you entered my domain, Cecil, guardian of the elements. The only way to know if your intentions were true was to make you go through the tests of the volcano. Braving the heat, and the climbs, have shown me that they are indeed true, and I welcome you to my home, and give you audience. Speak clearly and I will listen."
"Sundra, a darkness has pelted the lands and a dark prophecy has started its course. The moon guardian, a good friend, Elora, has fallen to a dark curse, and is the one in charge of the prophecies' dawning. We seek your assistance in hope that you would be able to help us."
"I understand," Sundra replied. "Follow me please."
Sundra led the two into a dark room, she held aloft her staff and in an instant the room illuminated to reveal a large room full of little, flickering flames every here and there. She waved her wand once to the right and the little flames gathered into one large fireball... and like a Discovery Channel promo on space, the Earth appeared, rotating on its axis in the midst of cold, dark space.
Harry awed at it and exclaimed, "Wow. How'd you-?"
Cecil hushed him, Harry growled to him, and turned his gaze back on the large fireball. The scene was now travelling over the lands, and seas, of Earth, stopping suddenly over a castle - Castle Gray, but Harry only remembered it as the place where he first saw Elora when she had changed.
"This is Castle Gray," Sundra said. "This is where your friend, Elora, sleeps in her chambers." She paused for a moment and continued, "Three others take refuge in the castle as well. Ahren, the Dark Arts master; Voldemort, the Dark Wizard; and a winged creature."
Suddenly, the vision reverted to inside the castle's stables, where Luno, the now huge, black winged unicorn lay in the hay, content and happy. "That's Luno," Harry told Sundra. "Elora was part of her birth."
"That explains why she has changed as such," Sundra hummed.
"Okay, now, this is all interested Sundra. How can we turn them back?" Cecil asked.
Sundra turned around and looked at Cecil, she smiled and said, "It is the Loretrick that turned them to the darkness, correct?"
"Yes," Harry answered. "So how do we reverse it?"
Sundra looked Harry over saying, "You are Harry Potter, the-"
"Yes, please spare me the whole 'Voldemort' thing, I've heard it sooo many times."
"All right, Harry," Sundra stopped shortly and continued, "The Loretrick is a dark curse created by Lore, the guardian of nightmares in The Realm. The only way to break his spell is to destroy the one who cast it."
Cecil burst in saying, "But we don't know who it was who cast the spell upon her?"
Sundra raised her head and said, "I do."
"Then who was it?" Harry shouted.
Sundra's eyes gazed at Harry and she whispered, "Voldemort."
Harry's head spun when she said the name. He growled, "So you mean we have to destroy Voldemort in order to free Elora from the Loretrick curse?"
"Easily said then done, eh, Harry?" Sundra said, tapping her staff on the ground as the fire sphere behind her vanished. She walked past them and back into her throne room.
"You're torturing me, Sundra!" Cecil shouted. "There has to be another way. The only cure can't be killing Voldemort. No one has been able to do that."
"Ah!" Sundra exclaimed, turning around and facing them. "I didn't say 'kill', now did I? Harry did it once before, he can do it again. Understand me?"
"But... but-" Harry studdered.
"There's duplicity in everything, my dears. Search between the lines of what you know to uncover the truth." Sundra's voice faded and soon Harry and Cecil found themselves outside in the cold darkness, just outside the entrance of Sundra's volcano.
"Search for the truth in what we know?" Cecil repeated.
Harry growled to himself, "More damn rhymes. Life taunts me, I swear!"
"Come on, Harry," Cecil said yawning. "Let's get back to the valley. Tomorrow's another day, if the world hasn't been totally destroyed by then. It'll be more clear to us then."
They disappeared in a flash, a small sapling grew where they had disappeared, to rest until the next day when they would have to think of a plan on how to solve the encrypted message which lay in their minds. Some way, some how, they were to defeat Voldemort who had put the dark curse upon Elora. How, and when they were going to accomplish this task, only the stars which wrote their destiny would know the answer. But shy as they are, they won't even tell me the answer. ~.^