{A/N: I'm really sorry about not updating this chap sooner. I kinda forgot I had it..... oops. Sorry.}
~*~*~*~*~
There was a ghost on the edge of her bed when Bethany woke up. It was the ghost of a boy, around ten years old.
"Jon?" she asked in a whisper.
He nodded. "I missed you," he whispered back.
Bethany blinked back tears. "I missed you, too. But what are you doing here?"
The ghost shrugged. "I wanted to see you."
Bethany nodded. "Why?" she asked.
The ghost just shook his head. "You dream loudly," he told her. "I could see it."
"You could see my dreams?" she asked. "How?"
He shook his head again. "I cannot explain it to you. You wouldn't understand. Go back to sleep, Bethy. It does no good to dwell on dreams." He turned away as though to leave.
"Wait! Jon!" The ghost turned back. "Come to see me again, please?" He nodded, and drifted out the door. Bethany fell back asleep.
The Hogsmead trip before Halloween was cancelled, and the next one wasn't until the week before Christmas Break started. There were no attacks from Sirius Black, and the overall feeling was that whoever had spotted him had gotten in wrong somehow.
The students who were allowed to go to the village were very glad to be able to get of doors for the day, without the safety restrictions. James and Casey were around together, looking in the shops, and buying presents for everyone, when Casey noticed something.
"Hey, James, isn't that your sister?" she asked, pointing.
The both ran outside, where it was lightly snowing. It was Lilly. James grabbed her by the arm. "What the hell do you think you're doing here?" he demanded. "You have to be in your third year!"
Lilly tried to twist out of her brother's grip. "Mom talked to Dumbledore. Ow! He said it was okay. James that hurts!" He was squeezing her arm. "She's here, go find her and ask her."
James looked around, and saw his mom entering the Three Broomsticks. He released his sister's arm. Lilly ran off towards her.
"What should we do now?" Casey asked James. "I bought all the gifts I need and I don't really want to go back to school yet."
"Me neither. Didn't your mom write you saying she was going to be staying here over the break?" Casey nodded. "Where was she going to be staying?"
"Ashley Heights, the Inn. I'm not sure if she's here yet, but we could go check," Casey responded.
The Inn was in the back of the village. When they got there, Casey asked if there was a Chevielle Davy checked in. The man at the desk shook his head. They left.
"I told you she wouldn't be there," Casey told James.
"Did you see the way he looked at you when you asked him?" Casey shook her head. "It was like, I don't know, you were asking if a person who wasn't even going to be staying there had checked in."
"Oh, yeah, I kind of noticed that."
"Do you think she would have changed her last name back to her maiden name now that she's getting divorced?" James asked.
"I never thought of that. I don't even know what her maiden name is," Casey pointed out. "It's snowing harder, let's go back to school. I was going to practice tonight with Britt."
They got back to school just in time for dinner. Afterwards, Casey, Britt, James and Harry went out to the Quidditch fields. After the tryouts, Casey and Harry had been chosen to be alternating seekers. Britt was keeper. James was there because he liked to watch them practice.
"Why do we need to practice before break?" Britt asked Casey.
"So we can get better," Harry told her, "and so we don't lose again like we lost last time." The last game had been against Slytherin, and Britt had been knocked out, so the other team kept scoring points. Harry had caught the snitch, but they had still lost.
"That wasn't my fault!" Britt protested. "He ran me into the goal post!"
"That's enough, you two," Casey said with a smile. "Let's practice."
Before anyone took flight, however, they heard something coming from the forest.
"What was that?" Britt said, eyes wide.
James shrugged, and looked at Harry. He shrugged also. They didn't have to wonder for long, because a large black dog suddenly came out from the trees. It stared right at Britt, in what could have been a hungry way.
It stepped forward, to get a better look. Britt froze in place. Casey pulled out her wand, and lit it up, straight in the dog's face. It growled, and turned its attention on her. She gulped, but stood strong. There was another bit of rustling of the trees. Everyone, including the dog, turned and looked.
Another creature emerged. This time it was a unicorn, but a dazzling gold one. Britt, who had been able to move once the dog had turned its attention away from her, gasped at the sight. The sight also startled the dog. It backed into the forest. When it was out of sight, the unicorn to left the field.
Britt let out a huge sigh of relief. "What was that thing?" she asked the others. James and Casey told her they didn't know, but Harry just looked confused about something.
~*~*~
Bethany had another dream that night, this one much, much more frightening.
~*~
She was a sixth year this time, and it was during the break. The eight of them were in the dungeons; no one else was around. They were in a circle. Clockwise, the circle went Bethany, Sirius, Janna, Severus Snape, Chevielle, Gregory, Lily, and James Potter. In front of Greg was an old, worn book, with no label on either the front or the spine, and the cover page simply read "Spells". In was floating in the air, for each person had one inward facing slash on each of his or her palms.
"...As one we bleed, together, we flow towards death..." Greg was saying. Lily was deathly pale, and frightened. Bethany saw that her eyes glistened with tears.
She shouldn't be here, Bethany thought. We should not of made her come, someone else could have come in her place.
Greg bowed his head, giving an unspoken sign. Everyone clasped hands with the people standing directly beside them. Bethany felt a power running threw her as her blood mixed, both physically and magically, with the seven other people.
The power felt dark and thick, and she felt sick, like she was committing herself to something unholy, but at the same time, she felt goodness flowing inside her, and she felt pure.
"...With blood our lives become one, like our blood, we our now a circle, a chain broken only by death, and by blood. We shatter innocence with a cut and a bond and only by innocence can we be unbroken!" Greg screamed the last few words. A dark red/purple mist, like the color of old, dried blood, filled the room, seeming to come from their very wounds. Bethany was afraid to breath in, that the mist would enter her, and contaminate her very life.
The room was cold, and her hands were numb. She no longer felt the connection between her hands, and Sirius' and James'. She breathed in. The mist had a taste, it made her gasp for more air, her chest clenched and she felt faint. She felt more than heard others in the circle do the same. She dimly felt Sirius squeeze her hand in comfort, but all that came through was more pain. The cuts on her hand stung, but then suddenly, they didn't. The mist started to clear. Beside her, Lily screamed...
~*~
Bethany screamed when she awoke. Her eyelids were still heavy, and her chest hurt as though she had been left without air for a long period of time. She sat up in her bed and looked around. She was safe in her room in the castle, and she was alone. She looked down and nearly screamed again. The scars on her palms that had been left from that night were once again dripping with blood.
~*~*~
Lilly Black woke up in the middle of the night. She didn't know why she had suddenly awoken, she hadn't been dreaming or anything. It was just like all of a sudden she wasn't tired anymore. She strained her ears for sounds, and found some. She got out of bed, and went down into the Common Room, where she found a few other people.
Hermione, Ron, Harry, James, Casey and Brittlynne were all talking. Hermione had a book with her, and it was a really large book, too.
"Okay, I have an idea about that thing we saw tonight," Hermione said, picking the book up.
"Wait," James said, cutting her off. "Lilly, what are you doing?" he asked his sister, whom he saw in the shadows.
"I couldn't sleep, and I heard you guys talking."
"Go back to bed," he told her sternly.
"James, be nice," Casey scolded. "Why don't we go up to the tower so that we don't wake any one else up," she suggested. People nodded, and they climbed up the stairs.
At the top of the tower was an ill-used room. The furniture all had sheets over it, like you would expect in an attic. It was very cold, because the window was broken, and then boarded up incompletely. No one, however, was interested in starting a fire. So they sat down at one of the tables (the one that had the least amount of dust) and let Hermione continue.
"Well, I was thinking about how it couldn't have been a real unicorn because those are silver and what you saw was gold, right?" Everyone but Lilly nodded, because she hadn't heard about what had happened. "So, since it was a real thing, it could have been an animagus. This," she pointed to the large book, "it the register."
"What happens if it's not in the register?" Ron asked.
"Well, we won't know until we look, will we?" Casey told him. He frowned.
Hermione opened the book and flipped through it until she got to the back, where the most recent ones were. "Oh!" she exclaimed, "It's in here!"
"Really?" Harry asked. Everyone crowded around the book, including Lilly.
"Yeah." She pointed to a spot on the page. It had an exact drawing of the creature they had seen, with a little written information. "Chevielle Annemarie Snape," she read.
"Snape?" Harry and Ron exclaimed together.
"Yes, but wait. It says she's dead..." Hermione looked puzzled. "Look."
Casey read over her shoulder. "Chevielle attended Hogwarts for six years, until she disappeared during the Easter Riots at Diagon Alley while in her seventh year. She was declared legally dead by her brothers, Gregory and Severus one year after it happened." She turned to Hermione. "Do you know what the 'Easter Riots' were?" she asked.
"Yes, I do. I read about them. It was 17 years ago, I think. A group of Death Eaters attacked places all over England on Easter. More peopled disappeared then were actually killed, I think. But it says that Severus Snape is her brother... That can't be a good thing."
"How did she become a registered animagus if she was still in school?" Britt asked. "Aren't there certain restriction and stuff against that?"
Hermione shrugged.
"I'm more worried about how we saw her if she's dead." James said. "What we saw sure didn't look like a ghost."
"It would explain why the dog freaked, if it was a ghost." Casey suggested.
"Yeah, maybe the dog knew her, and knew the ghost or whatever." Ron agreed. "Which I guess wouldn't be to hard, if she had been popular in school. It must have really sucked to be killed right before you graduated."
"It would suck to be killed at all, no matter when, stupid," James told him.
"Hey, boys, this is really not the best time to be arguing, okay?" Britt asked. "Now, does any one know who that dog was?"
Harry nodded. "Sirius Black," he said simply.
"Oh, great, I was nearly attacked by an escaped convict, and then was rescued by either a ghost, or someone who had been thought to be dead for seventeen years. This is turning out to be a really fun evening," Britt said sarcastically.
Casey sighed. "I don't think he was really going to attack you, Britt. He just looked a little curious. It only growled because I shined the light in its eyes."
"It was just really weird, okay?" Britt told her. She got up and started pacing around the room. "Does any one have any ideas on what we should do about this problem?"
"Um, we could go tell Professor Dumbledore about what we you," Lilly said quietly. They had almost forgotten about her for a moment. She figured out what they saw by listening to them talk.
"I'm not sure he would believe us if we did," Casey said. "But it's a nice thought."
Britt stopped pacing, and sat down on one of the couched in the room. There were no springs under the cushions though, and it went whoooosh as she sunk into the couch. The boys laughed. Britt jumped up. "It felt like I was sitting on something other that the cushion," she said thoughtfully. She pulled back the sheet that was over the couch. There was nothing under it. So she lifted up the cushion. Under it, she found a crumpled up piece of paper. She opened it up. There was writing on one side. The writing on one side looked like a poem.
"'I heard your voice across the sky,
I heard you sing a thousand lies.
I cried your tears, I felt your pain,
I miss you know like the summer's rain,'" Britt read.
"Interesting," Harry muttered. "What's on the other side?"
Britt flipped it over. "Let's see... 'Dearest Nya, I am sorry to have to be writing this to you so late in the year and all, but I have decided to leave Britain. I had been thinking about it since this time last year, when all those people died. I know it must pain you to hear this, but I am going abroad. I have thought to wait until you graduate, but the more I think of it, the more I realize that we should spend this time apart. I guess I am saying that we should break up. I am very sorry, and I feel like a wuss, saying this is a letter. I am going to Palestine. It will be a good experience for me, because they need more wizards there. I hope to see you again some time, and remember not to cry too much. Try to think of the good times, as I know I will. Like what happened before the break. I'm so sorry, Nya. In peace and love, sincerely, Greg. Ps., talk to Janna, she can help you.'" Britt blinked. "That was interesting. Any ideas on who the hell these people are?"
"Wouldn't it be funny if the Greg who wrote the letter was Gregory Snape, who is Chevielle's other brother?" Casey said.
"You know, I think I heard your mom once call my mom 'Nya', Casey," James said thoughtfully.
"This whole thing just got a whole lot more interesting," Britt commented.
~*~*~*~*~
{You should know what to do by know.}
RaWcK oN