Author's Note: the characters of the Harry Potter novels are the property
of their creator, J.K. Rowling, and are used here without her knowledge
or permission. All other characters property of the author. 53,000 words.
January, 2002. Adult situations, mild sexual content and violence.
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Chapter Nine – Lady of the Evening.
Whether she truly
was a vampire or simply averse to daylight for some other reason, all of
Ophidia Winterwind's Defense Against the Dark Arts classes were held at
night. An extra period was set aside during the day for study hall, giving
the students a chance to keep up on their homework.
One evening
in October, shortly before the first Hogsmeade weekend, Professor Winterwind
arrived to class late. She glided to the head of the room, swept her cascade
of inky hair back from her alabaster face, and scanned them all with eyes
like twin dollops of blood.
"There has been
news, dire news," she said. "The Dark Lord is stirring again."
Dire it was,
but hardly surprising. Harry had been braced for this moment since the
end of his fourth year, when he had been victim of a gruesome ritual that
had helped bring Voldemort back from a horrible half-life. He had summoned
his faithful Death Eaters to him and essentially declared his intention
to wage war on the rest of the wizarding world.
Dumbledore had
been working ever since to rally the forces of good against him, though
most of this work had been done as quietly and behind-the-scenes as possible.
What hampered Dumbledore the most was that many wizards, including a large
percentage of the Ministry of Magic, flat-out refused to believe any of
it. Harry's testimony had been discounted as the ravings of a troubled
child, and the death of Cedric Diggory was still regarded by some as a
dreadful accident.
At Hogwarts,
though, the truth was known and generally believed. It made things most
touchy, especially when it came to the Slytherins. Harry had personally
witnessed the appearance of the fathers of Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle among
Voldemort's Death Eaters.
But nothing
was done about this … Lucius Malfoy had, upon being questioned by Dumbledore,
freely admitted that yes, he had once been a Death Eater, and yes, he had
answered the Dark Lord's call that fateful night, but he had done so out
of fear for what might happen to his family if he refused. That, he said,
did not make him a current supporter of the Dark Lord. And surely no reasonable
person would blame the son for the past misdeeds of the father, would they?
Draco hadn't done anything worthy of expulsion, had he?
Lucius Malfoy
was so smooth a talker, so devious a debater, and a man of such influence
in the community that nobody was prepared to refute this. He might not
have been able to lie his way past a Truth Serum, but neither could he
be forced to take one unless accused of some crime. So, while everyone
knew
that he was still high in Voldemort's hierarchy, not a thing could be done
about it.
This led to
Draco and his friend strutting about with even more arrogance than they'd
shown in the past. It all infuriated Harry. The legal system among wizards
was nearly as senseless and confusing as the one among Muggles.
When Ophidia
Winterwind announced that the Dark Lord was stirring again, Draco smiled
that smug little smile that made Harry so earnestly want to punch his teeth
out.
Voldemort had
disappeared after his resurrection, vanished from sight. What little Harry
knew of his plans were vague – to gather his forces and strike alliances
with other races such as the giants, and the dementors. Dumbledore had
taken steps to contact the giants himself, offering the hand of peace.
As for the dementors, Dumbledore had as little use for them as did Harry
himself. They were fell, evil creatures that would gladly go with Voldemort,
whose reign of suffering would allow them access to the sadistic cruelties
they cherished.
No one knew
what else Voldemort might be up to … at least, no one who was willing to
come forth and say so. But now, looking at that smug little smile, Harry
was more sure than ever that Lucius Malfoy knew, was involved, and doubtless
shared the information with his precious son.
"Agents of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named
have been sighted all across the country," Professor Winterwind said. "Signs
of their sorcery has been found in several graveyards. It is suspected
that, failing to ally with the giants, the Dark Lord has turned his attention
to necromancy."
Hermione shuddered.
She wasn't alone. Half the class did, by no means all of them girls, and
the rest (with the exception of Malfoy and his bunch, of course), looked
deeply troubled.
"In light of
this," Ophidia went on, "I think we'll dispense with tonight's planned
lesson --" they had been practicing spells of aura-reading, which would
supposedly let them determine a person's mood and intentions by the shifting
patterns of emotional energy around them, though of course they had also
been shown ways to cloak their auras or even project false ones, the better
to confuse one's foes, "—and concentrate on the best ways to identify and
deal with the living dead. Can anyone name a specific type?"
Shudder though
she might, Hermione's hand was first up as usual. "Zombies," she said.
"Very good,
Miss Granger." Ophidia spoke coolly. "Zombies … reanimated corpses. They
have no memory of their former lives but exist solely to obey the will
of their Master. They are nearly unstoppable – even dismembered, their
severed parts will keep creeping and clutching. Anyone else?"
"Ghosts?" ventured
Neville.
She smiled warmly
at him, the warmth that was almost always present when she was addressing
one of the boys but absent around the girls. "Not quite, Mr. Longbottom.
Ghosts are stranded souls who have passed on and returned, bound to the
place of their death or by some unfulfilled onus."
Pansy raised
her hand. "Skeletons," she said with a sneer at Hermione.
"Not so fast,
Miss Parkinson." Ophidia sounded amused. "A skeleton is nothing more than
a zombie from whom the last vestiges of flesh have rotted."
"Ghouls," said
Draco.
"Excellent,
Mr. Malfoy," the professor purred, and Pansy bristled with jealousy. "Ghouls
are generally not brought into being by the application of any external
magic, but rise on their own. They exist by feeding on the flesh of the
dead. While they are not bound to any Master, they can be swayed by promises
of carnage."
"Vampires,"
snapped Pansy, although she hadn't been called upon.
"Vampires?"
echoed Ophidia with a low laugh. "The ignorant do refer to them as the
living dead, while the learned know that vampires are among the lucky few
who've attained immortality. Even if their bodies are destroyed, vampires
never fully leave. Their spirits remain, and can, under the proper circumstances,
come back in new bodies."
Ron raised his
hand. "What about shades, or wraiths? I heard they're not really ghosts."
She favored
him with a smile that nearly made Ron melt from his seat into a heart-shaped
puddle of goo on the classroom floor. "Cleverly deduced, Mr. Weasley. Shades
are neither alive nor dead, existing in a twilight world only slightly
removed from our own. A world that is sometimes almost close enough to
see, or touch. Like the discorporate spirit of a vampire, a shade can for
a time inhabit the body of another, speaking through that other's lips,
acting through that other's hands and body, but only for short whiles and
not without great cost to both."
They spent the
rest of the lesson discussing the more rare and exotic forms of the Undead
– mummies, ghasts, and so on – as well as means of best confronting or
disposing of them. Salt, Ophidia Winterwind told them, was sometimes good
against zombies; its cleansing properties reacted strongly with their undead
flesh. Silver's mystical properties often made it a valuable weapon against
many magical creatures. So, too, were cold iron, ash, fire …
Harry spent
much of the time until the bell with a terrible image in his mind – Voldemort,
on a black steed, at the head of an army of relentless walking corpses.
The more they slew, the more raw material there would be, ready to rise
up and walk. Fallen foes would be changed to allies.
But it was what
she'd said about the shades that nagged most at him. When everyone else
collected their things and left, he told Ron and Hermione he'd be along
directly, and lingered behind.
"Professor?"
"Yes, Harry?"
She had taken the lid from the jar of blood-flavored lollipops on her desk
and tilted it his way.
"Oh … no thanks,"
he said.
"Suit yourself."
She unwrapped one and licked it so sensuously that he almost forgot what
he'd wanted to ask.
"Um … ahem …
I was wondering … about shades."
"Were you?"
Her lips parted and she slid the deep red bulb between them.
"This … twilight
world," Harry said, inwardly telling himself to concentrate, damn it, concentrate.
"You said sometimes it seems very close to ours. Close enough to see."
"Or touch,"
she said, savoring the word 'touch' as if it, too, were a succulent treat.
"Or touch,"
Harry agreed.
His mouth was
dry and his pulse was thumping in his ears, beating on the sides of his
neck. Where the carotid artery was. He found himself remembering a paper
they'd once been assigned on vampires, and how most of them had gotten
a key fact wrong – vampires didn't go for the jugular; they craved the
bright, oxygen-rich arterial blood. Could she see his pulse throbbing?
Could she hear it? Was she tasting room-temperature blood-flavored candy
and imagining a jet of liquid hot and pumping from the source?
Ophidia twirled
the lollipop against her lips. Some of its dye – or was it made from real
blood? – had come off on them and made them redder than ever. "That is
what I said, yes."
Harry could
barely remember or care what they'd been talking about. He was very conscious
that they were alone now, that due to the lateness of the hour none of
the other classrooms were occupied, that everyone else was on their way
back, or already ensconced in, their House dormitories and common rooms.
"Shades!" he
nearly shouted.
Her amused scarlet
eyes twinkled like jewels. "Yes?"
"You said they
were close enough to almost be seen and touched. Can they really
be seen?"
"By some," she
said. "Some are more sensitive, more aware. Some can perceive the shadow
worlds that lay so close to our own. Are you thinking of that boy?"
Boy? Boys were
the last thing on his mind … he was thinking of girls … no, women,
this woman, this moonstone and obsidian goddess with eyes that seemed able
to look right into his soul.
"Jeremy," he
said, dragging the name out as if it was snagged on something. "Yes. When
he was Sorted …"
"Once again,
Harry, I'm impressed. You don't mind if I call you Harry, do you?"
"No, not at
all."
"Harry." Whenever
she said his name it was as if her voice curled, like warm smoke, down
deep into his vitals. "You're a most remarkable young man. The rest of
your classmates have forgotten all about that incident, haven't they? As
strange as it was, they've forgotten."
"Yeah."
"You think that
he became a shade. That he died under unusual circumstances and came back
somehow."
"Yeah!" Harry
nodded vigorously. "He did die, then? We thought so, Hermione and
me, but then he woke up … he seemed all right, but not all right
…"
"He woke as
a shade, yes, you're right. As has happened to perhaps a hundred unfortunate
students over the years. They couldn't remain among the living, nor could
they fully join the dead."
"So they go
to Battenby House," Harry said. Then he frowned. "But Moaning Myrtle, the
ghost in the bathroom, she died and stayed where she was."
"A different
situation. Shades … well … they don't usually come back on their own. Someone
has to help them."
"I don't understand."
"What happened
on the train? The boy was found, apparently dead? What then? Did anyone
try to revive him?"
"I did," said
Harry. "I cast an awakening spell on him. I didn't think it would help,
I knew he was dead, but …"
"But it was
enough. You must have cast your spell as he was still on the threshold
of death. It brought him back, but not all the way. You, Harry Potter,
were the author of his transformation."
Harry gaped
at her. He had lost all interest in the seductive promise of that lollipop
being curled around and caressed by her tongue. The thought that he had
done that to Jeremy … doomed him … damned him … it was horrible.
She replied,
as if she'd read his mind, "Some might argue that you did him a favor,
Harry. He is still, in a way, alive. He is among others of his kind. And
he might, one day, be fortunate enough to return to a warm, living body."
"But only for
a while, you said." He rubbed his scar, and wouldn't have been surprised
if it hurt. Bringing a poor little boy partway back to life … that was
an act as cruel as anything a Dark wizard could have done.
"There's still
much about shades, and about Battenby House, that you don't know, dear
Harry. They have the means to come back. All the way. Time passes on a
different scale for them, but they grow and age as you do. They attend
classes, as you do. And when they've completed their education, those who've
done well are given the chance to live again. That is Cyril Battenby's
legacy to his House. He was a shade himself, but he was an old man when
he crossed that border. He thought it was unfair that children should be
robbed of their future, and wove great spells to ensure that they would
have the opportunity to reclaim the lives that they'd lost."
"How?" Harry
asked in a hoarse whisper.
Ophidia Winterwind
raised her eyes to the ceiling. By her distant expression, she was not
seeing the cobwebs and roofbeams but something else, something altogether
wonderful. "The Soulstone. Can you imagine, Harry, a crystal sphere filled
with the mist and light that is the very essence of life? Life force, Harry,
contained within a gem of unparalleled beauty. When the students of Battenby
House have attained their potential, a measure of that life force is given
to them, and they are alive again."
"Dumbledore
said there was no way to bring back the dead, not fully," Harry said. "When
Cedric died. Because if there had been --"
"He was not
a shade. The Soulstone can do nothing for those who've fully passed into
death. If only it could, we could have back those we've loved and lost.
That would be a great thing indeed, wouldn't it?"
"Yes." He was
thinking of his parents, their lives cut so brutally short by Voldemort's
evil. Such violent deaths, such senseless deaths … he still didn't know
why.
Why had Voldemort wanted to kill him? He'd only been a baby, just
a year old, how could he have possibly posed enough of a threat that Voldemort
would seek out and destroy an entire family because of it?
"But for those
who are in the twilight realm, the Soulstone represents hope, a second
chance," she said. "This boy, this Jeremy … when he has grown and learned,
he may win back his life."
"I wish I could
talk to him," Harry said. "Tell him I'm sorry, explain what happened. And
…" he felt his eyes widen. "And ask him who attacked him! Someone did,
on the train. Someone murdered him. He was confused at first, but he must
remember. Professor, lately I've been seeing things, or thinking I have.
At the fringes of my vision. Could I be seeing this twilight realm you
talked about?"
"I should think
it's very likely. You were close to them during the Sorting. You spoke
to Professor Charon."
"He said I was
partly to thank!"
"There, you
see? A vital connection was forged between you and young Jeremy. I shouldn't
wonder that with just a bit of help, all would become clear to you."
"Hermione thought
maybe a Potion of True-Sight …"
"She's quite
the intelligent young lady. Why not try it, and see what you will see?
Now, not to chat and run, but I have a late dinner date and must beg you
to excuse me."
"What? Oh …
sorry." A spark of envy flared in his heart. He almost asked who she was
having dinner with, but couldn't do it for fear she'd say it was Snape.
"Thanks."
"Anytime." She
smiled her special melting smile at him and his stomach did a happy little
flip-flop. "Let me know how it goes, and if I can be of any more help,
you have but to ask."
She turned to
leave, affording him a view that was almost as nice from the back as it
was from the front. Everything swayed.
"Oh … Professor?"
Slowly, languidly,
she turned to him again. "I think, Harry, that we needn't be student and
teacher after hours. Why not call me Ophidia?"
"Ophidia." He
sampled the name, and it was like dark chocolate on his tongue. "What about
Professor Charon?"
"Oh, I hardly
think you know him well enough to be on first-name terms," she laughed.
"I mean … is
he a shade?"
"No, certainly
not."
Harry grinned
ruefully. "Sorry. That was a dumb question."
"Not at all."
She began to glide down the corridor, and paused at the foot of the stairs
to look back over her shoulder. "He's a ghoul."
** |