Author's Notes: This chapter is dedicated to Yollie, Rich, and Elaine, Quiz's nieces and nephew. For their intriguing theories and undying enthusiasm.
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Lauralie Black and the Cloak of Destiny (YEAR 1)
Chapter 11: New Discoveries
They stared in silence. The scissors lay on the floor broken. Severus tried a Severing charm to no avail.
"What do you make of this?" Lucius whispered.
No one answered. No one said a thing. Then quite suddenly Severus took out his wand and hissed "Inflamare!" Flames jumped from the end of his wand onto the cloak. Everyone jumped back.
"What are you doing?" Narcissa snapped.
The flame quickly died, leaving the cloak with out any mark or singe.
"Its Indestructible," Severus said.
"I don't think we are ever going to know all of the hidden powers of this thing," Narcissa whispered.
Severus stepped forward and tipped the phial so that he could dip an edge of the cloak fabric into the potion. It sizzled briefly before turning a deep shade of orange.
"Is that good or bad?"
"Good. It is curse free." Severus answered, putting a stopper in the bottle. "Lestrange won't be confiscating it."
"Sirius was taking great interest in the origin of that cloak on the way to Herbology," Lucius announced.
"Oh really?" Lauralie whispered. "Must be causing too much of a splash for his taste."
Lucius did not bother to stifle his amusement. "Precisely what I said."
* * *
The reaction to Lauralie as she entered the Great Hall was greatly muted as compared to her first entrance, but was detectable all the same. She was beginning to wonder if she would ever get used to having eyes flicker towards her whenever she entered a room. It actually seemed to bother Narcissa more then herself. "Looks the same as it bloody did yesterday. Will you stop staring!" she mumbled as she speared a piece of sausage with her fork.
Lauralie began to slowly dissect her scrambled eggs, running through the day's schedule. "Oh bloody hell," she said suddenly, "I don't believe it, I've left my History of Magic book in my room. I'm going to be late."
"Oh come on," Narcissa hissed, pushing away her plate. "We'll all go and walk up together. Old Binns won't notice the difference."
Anastasia and Katia both rose with them and they marched off back towards the dungeons.
"I see that Miss Black has come into possession of the Cloak of Destiny."
Severus nearly choked on his bacon. He turned to meet with the pale blue eyes of Evan Rosier. Hovering closely behind him was Richard Wilkes. Severus struggled to make himself seem as if this was not news to him.
"I must say that she is not whom I expected to receive such an amazing gift," Wilkes intoned. "It means wonderful things for the young witch."
"Yes, indeed it does," Rosier agreed.
The conversation was beginning to give Severus the creeps, though he wondered if it could be classified as a conversation when he had not spoken once. Finally he risked it enough to speak.
"What sort of wonderful things?"
Rosier smiled a twisted smile. "It will lead her to her destiny."
Wilkes smiled as well. "And perhaps it will lead you to yours."
Severus said nothing to this. He put down his fork and pushed his chair away from the table. Shared a meaningful look with Lucius before turning to leave the Great Hall. He was stopped short however by Ludo Bagman, who headed him off at the doors. "We'll be practicing Quidditch during both lunch and dinner for the next couple days."
"That's insane," Lucius hissed. He had apparently been following Severus out of the Hall. "When are we supposed to eat?"
"You'll be eating in the locker room while we go over new plays," Ludo snapped. "I don't want to hear any complaints either. We go up against Gryffindor in a couple of days and we have to WIN!" He punched his palm for emphasis. "See you at lunch time."
"Insanity!" Lucius said. "Ludo's gone and lost his marbles."
"I have bigger things to worry about other that Quidditch," Severus breathed. "Were you listening to Rosier and Wilkes."
"No, Rita was jabbering on about how Duncan McConaugha tried to bewitch his quill to do his homework for him and it ended up writing a rude letter to Professor McGonagall."
Under other circumstances Severus would have laughed at the young Gryffindors misfortune, but he had bigger things on his mind. "Well, while she was jabbering on about that, Rosier and Wilkes were jabbering on about how Lauralie had received the Cloak of Destiny."
Lucius jaw fell open. "What's a Cloak of Destiny?"
"Not sure yet, but I'm sure we can find out," Severus said. "What bothers me is that they seem to know something we don't. They were talking about how this meant good things for Lauralie, and would lead her to her fate. Or something like that."
Lucius' brow furrowed. "How would they know?" he asked rhetorically, knowing neither of them had an answer. "Bugger, and now we can't even go look up this Cloak of Destiny in the library, because Ludo has us practicing during both of our meals. And the girls don't even know."
"We'll just have to tell them tonight. "
* * *
It was just after curfew when the Slytherin Quidditch team trudged into the common room. Severus and Lucius collapsed in chairs at the table that Lauralie and Narcissa were working at.
"Where on Earth have you two been?" Narcissa asked, tossing aside her Defense Against the Dark Arts homework. "You weren't at lunch or dinner, we thought you had skipped town."
"Ludo's gone bonkers," Lucius hissed. "He has us practicing at all meals, and after classes. I don't have time to breath anymore."
"Rosier and Wilkes said some things at breakfast this morning that I thought you might find interesting," Severus whispered. "He called your cloak the 'Cloak of Destiny'. Said it would mean good things for you, lead you to your destiny."
"What would they know?" Narcissa asked, lowering her voice to a whisper.
"I don't know," Severus answered.
"Why is it that everyone knows more about my business than I do?" Lauralie hissed.
There was no answer to this. They sat in silence for a while, Narcissa was absentmindedly tapping her wand on the table. There was a sudden flash of light as she accidentally ignited her parchment. "Whoops," she laughed, trying to put it out.
Lauralie began to shove her books back into her bag. "I'm tired. I'm going to bed. We'll have to deal with this in the morning." She walked up the corridor to the girls' dorms before anyone could voice an argument.
Narcissa sighed. "Too bad you guys didn't let us know sooner we could have checked it out in the library, see if we could find any info."
"It's not our fault Ludo went haywire," Lucius pointed out.
Lauralie climbed into her bed still fully dressed, and closed the dark green hangings. She sat silently under the blankets as Anastasia, Katia, and Narcissa came in to go to bed. She waited, staring up at the ceiling for them to fall asleep.
She parted the curtains silently, and slipped back out of her bed when she was sure they were all asleep. She pulled the cloak over her shoulders and departed quickly. The common room was deserted as she slipped through the massive stone door.
Her destination was the library. She didn't want to wait till morning to find out what the Cloak of Destiny was. Her mind was abuzz as she slipped silently through the corridors. It seemed that receiving the cloak meant something. Professor Lestrange knew it, Rosier and Wilkes knew it. She damn well deserved to know what it meant.
She was balling her hands into fists and releasing them rapidly. She didn't know what she would do if she came across a teacher. However, she was fairly sure she'd be safe in the library. Not many students snuck out of bed in the middle of the night to do school work in the library, so teachers probably didn't check there often when on rounds. So it was with a small sigh of relief that she entered into Hogwarts' cavernous library.
She wandered down the aisles of bookshelves pulling down books. Once she had an armful she settled herself down at a table in the far back corner of the library and began to scan the indexes of the books.
Lauralie nearly shouted in joy when she came across "Destiny, Cloak of" in the back of The Worlds 100 Most Magical Objects.
The Cloak of Destiny is said to be only a rumor, but reliable historical documentation shows that four Cloaks of Destiny existed in all history. One was created by Merlin in the 13th century. Merlin's Cloak was supposedly destroyed by the Dark Wizard Grindelwald, using mysterious Dark Magic, in order to prevent it from falling into the hands of his worst enemy. The second Cloak belonged to Rainelda Ravenclaw, whose daughter Rowena went on to help found the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. It is said that Rowena was buried wearing this particular cloak. The final two Cloaks were created by fellow Hogwarts founders Godric Gryffindor and Salazar Slytherin. The whereabouts of these two cloaks are still unknown, though it is suspected that they have been lost as well.
The Cloak of Destiny is a very powerful article of clothing that works only for the youngest heir of the cloak's creator, and for no one else. Though the full extent of their powers is generally known only to their creators, most are guaranteed to magnify the powers of whomever wears them, some are even rumored to allow the wearer to become invisible at will.
With out thinking Lauralie ripped the page from the book and suddenly it began to scream. Of course, the anti destruction spells. She silently cursed herself for her lack of thinking as she leapt up from the table. But before she could really get anywhere she heard the door to the library creak open. Oh God, don't let him see me. DON'T SEE ME!
Cuthbert Cauldwell hobbled into view, he was the Hogwarts caretaker. "Who's there?"
Lauralie had to struggle not to gasp. She was standing in plain view in front of the table and yet he didn't seem to see her. She was trying to figure out if it was because the old man was blind, or because she was actually invisible. The answer soon came as the old man tried to walk through her on his way to silence the still screaming book.
After leaping out of the way she took the opportunity to flee under the cover of the scream.
* * *
Lauralie met no resistance on her way back to the Slytherin common room. She was fairly sure that any teachers that were paroling the halls were now heading towards the library. She skidded to a halt in front of the stone snake that guarded the Slytherin common room.
"Who'sssssss there?" it hissed, its eyes squinting in the darkness. It allowed its forked stone tongue to flit out of its mouth. Lauralie guess that it could smell her.
"Dragon's blood. Dragon's blood." Lauralie whispered.
"You ssssssshouldn't be out of bed," the snake hissed.
"I know I know, just let me in."
The stone door scraped open more quietly then she had expected. She crept into the common room. The fire was still ablaze in the fireplace, and sitting in the chair close to it was a lone figure.
Severus Snape sat in one of the big green armchairs, a book lying forgotten in his lap. Lauralie walked and sat down in the chair across from him. At first she wondered why he hadn't said anything to her, then she realized she was still invisible. She reached up for the clasp of the cloak to take it off, as she was unsure how to make herself visible again.
Severus seemed only mildly surprised as she suddenly appeared in the chair.
"Where the Hell have you been?" he whispered.
"Library," she answered, handing him the page, "Found this."
He scanned it silently. But didn't comment, he folded it back up and handed it back to her.
"Well, I think it's fairly certain that that is a Cloak of Destiny."
"But who sent it to me?" she asked. "And why?"
He shook his head silently to indicate he still didn't know. In his mind he had a suspicion though, but he couldn't bear to tell her. He knew she wouldn't like it.
Roll of Honor: QuizzicalSphinx, Phoenix Storm, Slytherin, Skyfire, Sweet Audrina, Amber, Nomad (JK said in an interview that Lily's last name was indeed Evans), Heather Long, Tamara K., Blackletter, Serena, Mask of Dawn, Dark Divinity, ostia, Snidgey, Skipper77, & Emma