III – The Beautiful and the Damned
III – The Beautiful and the Damned

     Hu Li awoke with a start. She sat straight up in bed, shaking and breathing hard. It was a dream, she thought. It wasn't real – she was not reliving the lowest point of her life. But Jun Tao – Jun Tao was real. The evil and the horror that he embodied was real. The memory was real – she had been tortured and starved for a full week before she had killed a guard and stolen his keys and escaped. Hu Li had been true to her word – she had eventually come after Jun Tao and killed him, slowly and sweetly, just as she has promised. But still he haunted her.

     She pulled back her bed curtains and peered out into the darkness. It must be nearly two-thirty or three. The night was in the blackest hours of its life. The moon had gone down and there was no light. But Hu Li didn't need light. She used her senses to bring her to the door, walking without a sound, and opening the door to the staircase. She knew there was no more sleeping tonight.

     Unfortunately, she was new to the Hogwarts doors. This one let out a small but powerful squeak – not loud enough to wake the entire dorm, but loud enough to wake one person.

     "Who's there?" hissed Hermione fiercely as she leaped out of bed, brandishing her wand as if Voldemort and his entire troupe of Death Eaters was crashing into their dorm to do battle with her alone. Then her wand lit up. "Hu Li! You scared me horribly, I didn't know who it could be – and what are you doing? You know Professor Dumbledore told us not to wander around."

     Hu Li said feebly, "I was – I was going to the bathroom – shhh, be quiet -"

     Hermione said, "Going to the bathroom, indeed! I don't know what you're doing, but …"

     Hu Li sighed. "I had – well, I had a nightmare and I was going to the common room to read."

     Hermione softened at the words "nightmare" and "read". "Oh," she said softly. "What was the nightmare about?"

     Hu Li gave an involuntary shudder. "I don't remember, but it was atrocious," she lied.

     Hermione looked closely at Hu Li. "You really don't remember?"

     Hu Li told herself, watch it. You're treading a lake of paper-thin ice that is slowly cracking. This girl is perceptive. "Just that I was quite frightened," she said carefully, delicately probing Hermione's cautious feelings with the senses and the mind that were unnatural. With a start she remembered something Jun Tao said to her when she had first been brought into the Ministry. You are unnatural. You were not part of Nature. Nature abhors you. You hold the key to far too many doors. The quandary is – will you have the power to unlock them?

     Suddenly she felt very tired, very drained. It was the dream, she knew – it had been incredibly painful for her. "I think I'll go back to bed," she murmured, almost to herself. "Yes, to bed."

     Hermione said with concern, "Hu Li, are you sure you're all right?"

     Hu Li looked at her. Concern was something she had only felt from her father, Wang, and Albus Dumbledore before now. But now, these four new friends she had made – they were simply overflowing with concern for her well-being and mental and physical health. Well, physically I'm fine, she thought. It's the mental part I'm not so sure about …

     "Yes," she said. "I am merely very tired." She shut the door almost reverently and walked back to her bed, making sure to walk with some noise like the humans did. "Good night, Hermione. Sweet dreams." She felt a cackle of laughter or perhaps a flood of tears that was rising slowly in her throat. Maybe she was mad. It made her slightly regretful but not ultimately sad, as if sanity were just a cheap toy she had lost somewhere but didn't really care about.

     "Good night," Hermione said softly. "Dream well."

     And if I don't, thought Hu Li darkly, you'll likely find me in the morning, dangling from the ceiling beams with a noose wrapped round my throat, or asleep in a warm bath with two razor nicks at my wrists. How awful, she thought, and then, out of pure exhaustion, dropped off into Morpheus' welcoming arms.

*

     The gods were merciful. She had no more dreams that night, or at least none she remembered. She hoped regretfully that she would not have to resort to the Dreamless Sleep Potion that she had gotten herself nearly addicted to in China. Perhaps she was going through withdrawal.

     Hermione woke her at an ungodly hour and said briskly, "Get up, get up, we've got to eat breakfast, then get our schedules and come back here for books, then to our first class. And I won't be late for any of it!"

     Groaning and muttering to herself, Hu Li slithered sleepily out of bed and into her nice black Hogwarts robes. They were quite warm; thank heavens, because though there was a blazing fire in the common room, it felt like Antarctica in the fifth year girls' dorm. She was susceptible to heat and cold, even though it did not affect her much. It was, however, very uncomfortable.

     Hermione rushed her down to breakfast and sat her down at the end of the Gryffindor table, propping her up with George Weasley's elbow. Drowsily she said, "So how are breakfasts here at Howarts?"

     "Simply smashing!" declared George, digging into a mountain of food on his plate. "Delicious! Hearty and filling, and a good thing, too, looks like I've got Herbology out in the greenhouses first."

     "Is it always this cold here in September?" said Hu Li, attempting to sit up on her own. Or did

I just bring seven plagues and bad luck with me, she wondered.

     "No, it's usually fairly chilly here," said Fred cheerily. "Except summer."

     Hu Li managed to sit up and put a piece of toast and some fruit on her plate. "Oh," she said, yawning lazily. "Wonderful." She smiled at Harry and Ron, who had just wandered down from their dorm.

     Just then there was a thunder of wings. Hu Li looked up to see hundreds of owls came swooping into the Great Hall, carrying parcels and letters in their claws. Hu Li resumed eating. She was sure that if anyone back in China or Hong Kong had written to her, it would not have arrived yet. She was surprised, therefore, when a tawny owl swooped down and dropped a letter nearly into her plate. It landed on her shoulder, but she barely noticed the sharp talons. She was looking at the letter.

     She turned to the owl and said softly, "From whom did this come?"

     The owl blinked its wise amber eyes and looked up at the High Table and at Albus Dumbledore. She muttered, "Why would he…?" She looked down at the letter again. There was

a small note on the envelope in careful but distinctive handwriting. Do not open this at the table.

     Hu Li looked at the owl once more – into the fathomless amber eyes and at the long, powerful wings and the sharp talons. She wished almost without thinking for the freedom of the owl. Then it gently nipped her finger and took flight once again, soaring off and out of the window.

     Hu Li took a piece of toast and the letter and absently walked out of the Great Hall, telling Hermione, Harry, and Ron that she left something upstairs. She went into the quiet entrance hall and leaned against the wall, munching the toast and turning the letter over and over.

     Hu Li had a feeling she knew what this letter would contain, and she was dreading opening it. She had not been lying to Professor McGonagall – she did not have faith in herself to perform her job well. But she knew Dumbledore did – and that hurt, because she feared letting him down. She didn't think she would have the courage and the luck and the diplomacy to do the deed – and she had a feeling that she may not come out of it alive.

     Slowly, she opened the envelope. Something fell out of it and onto the floor with a small clang, and she picked it up and looked at it. It was a small gold medallion on a thin gold chain. The medallion was shaped like a many-pointed star. On the front it read, "Morituri te salutamus".  On the back, Strength and Honor. Is that what Dumbledore considered her – a gladiator? She smiled and opened the piece of parchment in the envelope.

     The letter read:

     Dear Hu Li,

                I have spoken with Minerva McGonagall and she has told me of your doubt to perform

your mission well. Have no doubt – it will only hinder you. I have every ounce of faith in you that you will do admirably. You are a rare and amazing girl – but you need to realize that. Have faith in yourself. You are braver than you believe yourself to be.

     I have received word from the Nations that they have agreed to meet with you. North America has informed me that they will be unable to send someone over, as they have a small crisis with Muggles- something about a new Hollywood film.

     However, I have ten other leaders of the Nations who wish to speak with you. They have agreed to meet you in the Three Broomsticks tomorrow night. They have been given strict instructions not to feed from anyone in Hogsmeade, as that would attract attention to the mission. I am allowing you to say whatever you see fit, but I ask you only to emphasize that we wish to join hands with them, not fight against them.

     I have the deepest trust that you will prove yourself an excellent emissary and diplomat to the noble but misunderstood race of creatures known as vampires.

                                                       Albus Dumbledore

P.S. I have enclosed a pendant that a Roman gladiator by the name of Lamia once wore. She was a dignified and brave woman who later proved instrumental in crushing a war between wizards and vampires, though she lost her own life doing so. She was a diplomat as well as a gladiator, and she was also a half-blood like you. I have faith that you will be as great as Lamia was in your dealings with the vampires. Good luck.

     Hu Li sighed and leaned against the wall, feeling slightly ill. Tomorrow night she would be sitting down at the table of brotherhood with ten of the world's greatest and most deadly beings on earth. She closed her eyes. And she was one of them.

     There was a light sound as of a paper wafting to the floor. Hu Li bent down and picked up another sheet of parchment with Professor Dumbledore's handwriting on it. She read:

Asia:

Nirupam Singh, India and Keiko Kishi, Japan

Australia:

Anita Crowe, Queensland and Kalgoorlie Dirranbandi, Western Australia

Europe:

Niccolo Alighieri, Italy and Kirsten Erikson, Sweden

Africa:

Muntunge Kironyo, Ghana and Phillip Smith-Felperin, South Africa

South America:

Luis Perone, Argentina, and Juliana Anatuya, Brazil

     She thought, this must be a list of the ten diplomats whom I'll meet tomorrow night. She smiled at the Italian name. Old Niccolo, as he was respectfully called, had always been very kind to her, as a friend of her father's. She had also met Keiko Kishi and Phillip Smith-Felperin once before. She liked Keiko, but Phillip was rather stuffy. The other five vampires, she did not know. At least there would be one very familiar face. Old Niccolo was a vampire about five hundred years old, and he had been trying to work for better wizard-vampire relations for at least three hundred years. Hu Li sincerely hoped he would not be disappointed tomorrow night.

     A faint and sudden noise put her instantly on her guard. Hu Li turned quickly and faced Draco Malfoy, standing right behind her.

     "Oh!" she exclaimed, somehow managing to stuff the letter and the medallion into her pocket. "What were you thinking, creeping around like a thief? You startled me!" she said angrily.

     Draco merely looked at her with those sly eyes. "I just wanted to see how your hands were, after the firecracker incident. And I wanted to apologize for Goyle."

     "Oh," she said stupidly, and held them out. "Don't worry about it, I didn't even get burned."

     He stared at her hands ands said sharply, "You didn't?" Hu Li shook her head, understanding his confusion.

     Still he stared at her. "I could have sworn …"

     "What?" she inquired innocently.

     "Nothing," Draco said, shaking his head. Smoothly he added, "Why don't you wear you hair down?"

     "I – what?" she said distractedly. "My hair?" Hu Li thought about her hair on the average of about ten seconds a day. "What's wrong with it?" she said indignantly.

     "Not a thing," Draco said lightly. "It looks great in that bun, but I just wanted to know what it looked like down." Deftly he pulled out the ivory chopsticks securing her hair in place. It poured down around her face like a shiny black waterfall.

     "Long," he said brilliantly. "Very long."

     "Yes – I haven't cut it in years." It was true – her hair reached nearly to the small of her back – just as Sou Mei's did. That was why she wore it up – long hair was so impractical.

     He nodded, still watching the way light shimmered off the smooth black surface. "Beautiful," Draco murmured, almost to himself.

     Hu Li felt herself flushing slightly. "That's enough," she said coolly. "Let me have my chopsticks."

     Draco watched as Hu Li whipped her hair back into the bun and dexterously stuck the chopsticks into it in a total of four seconds. He raised an eyebrow. "Impressive …  for a Gryffindor."

     "That's me," Hu Li replied. She turned and strode back into the Great Hall, leaving Draco looking after her.

***

     Hu Li went back upstairs with Hermione, Harry, and Ron to get their books. Their first class today happened to be Potions. Hu Li wasn't really looking forward to it – Potions had not been her thing back in Hong Kong.

     "What did you choose to take this year?" Hermione asked her.

     "I think I picked Care of Magical Creatures and Arithmancy but I can't really remember," said Hu Li.

     Hermione gaped at her. "Can't remember? But – it's so important!"

     Hu Li shrugged. "Oh well," she said. It didn't matter to her. She could be top student if she wanted to – but she didn't. She didn't think it was fair of her, just because she had been born with abilities others didn't have.

     Hermione muttered to herself under her breath as they retrieved their Potions stuff, then dragged it down into Snape's dungeon.

     He was standing at the blackboard, watching them file in. When he saw Hu Li, he

automatically looked down. Hu Li sighed. Severus Snape had, in fact, been a friend of her father's. But first, he had been a friend of her mother's, Sou Mei, the oldest and the most feared vampire that walked the earth. The Phoenix, as they called her in the East, because though she had been stuck in many death-traps by many experienced Aurors, she always seemed to be reborn – or escape.

     Hu Li went with Harry and Ron and Hermione to four tables at the back of the room, far away from Severus Snape. Snape, evidently remembering her mother, kept glancing nervously at her, as if she were a time bomb about to explode. Maybe he was right, she thought. Maybe I am a time bomb.

     The lesson began. Snape drew himself up to his full dictatorship and spat, "So. Another year of joy, with the Gryffindors and the Slytherins in one room." Hu Li looked over to the other side of the room in surprise. She hadn't even realized that the Slytherins were with them. But there they were, most of them wearing sneers. Perhaps Ron and Harry were right about the Slytherins, she thought, they certainly looked like an evil lot.

     Snape continued, "I shall enjoy seeing which of you will do well in Potions," and here he threw an almost-smile at Draco, who looked steadily back, "and which of you will fail miserably." He stared at a small, plump boy that Hu Li remembered as Neville Something-or Other.

     "Longbottom," Snape said, looking at Neville. Hu Li sat up. Longbottom? Poor boy! She knew about his parents – insane in a hospital here in Britain. Hu Li closed her eyes. Snape continued, "I will be especially interested in you this year. It will be amusing to see if your Potions grade could possibly sink lower than it was last year." The Slytherins laughed nastily and Snape opened his mouth to say something else. Hu Li couldn't bear it any longer.

     "Please, sir," she said coolly. "Are you really that sadistic that you wish to bring Neville

any more misery? From the looks of it, he's suffered this sort of treatment for four years now.

Don't you think it's time to find a new victim?"

     There was dead silence. Some of the Slytherins wore the beginnings of nasty grins, as if they sensed that she was going to be turned into a frog any minute now. The Gryffindors had shocked looks on their faces.

     Snape said slowly, "Are you volunteering, Zhang?" However, he did not say it with the usual nastiness.

     She replied, "Not exactly. But if you really want to torture me … who am I to stop you?"

     Snape drew a breath and said quietly not impolitely, "I don't wish to hear anything more. Please be quiet, Zhang."

     Hu Li was suddenly aware of nearly the whole class turning to stare at her. She leaned over to Hermione and muttered, "What did I do?"

     Hermione whispered back, "Well, you see, you've just destroyed a common Hogwarts truth. Severus Snape was just polite to a Gryffindor."

     But not because I was a Gryffindor, Hu Li thought. Because he thinks I am as dangerous as Sou Mei. That's what he is afraid of – Sou Mei's legacy.

     The lesson meandered on. Snape did not make any more snide remarks to Neville or indeed anyone else and kept glancing tensely at her. This made Hu Li rather uncomfortable. When the lesson was over, she waited until everyone had filed out of the Potions classroom, urging her friends on. Then she walked up to Snape's desk.

     She cleared her throat and he jumped about a foot and stared at her with wild eyes. "Oh, er, Zhang – yes, what did you – why – oh, where did I leave my -"

     "Your wand, sir?" said Hu Li. "It's in your pocket."

     "Ah, yes." He found it rather sheepishly. Hu Li was not used to a nervous Snape. It was

disconcerting. It seemed that when she was alone with him, he became very agitated.

     "Professor," Hu Li said tentatively. "I wanted to tell you that you have no reason to fear me. I am not truly Sou Mei's daughter – only by blood. We are entirely different people, and as I am not the cruel, bloodsucking daughter she wished for, I haven't seen her for twelve years. She left me when I was three."

     Snape looked at her. "You aren't like Sou Mei?"

     Hu Li snorted. "For starters, I don't need to drink blood, and I certainly don't kill people." Jun Tao was the exception – if that fiend could even be considered a person. Personally, she didn't think so. He deserved far more than he got – she was far too merciful to him.

     Snape relaxed slightly. "I was wondering why Dumbledore let a vampire in."

     "I imagine he wouldn't if I needed to feed off blood," she said. "But I don't. And he definitely wouldn't if I was like Sou Mei – a school full of children would be like an all-night free buffet to her."

     He shuddered. "If there's one thing I hate," he muttered, "it's Sou Mei. No offense," he added.

     "None taken," replied Hu Li. "I know some of the horrid things she's done to you, and there are probably scores worse that I don't know about. I'm talking about back in Voldemort's day, when you and her were both Death Eaters."

     Snape's black eyes narrowed. "The darkest days of my life," he hissed.

     "Tell me about darkest days," she said gloomily. "You must relive them, dream of them, over

and over again. They must haunt you like they haunt me, the grinning specters of the lowest points of living that are worse even then death itself."

     Snape looked directly at her and she saw something in his eyes that Harry Potter could never

have imagined: compassion. "I have been told that it is our suffering that makes us who we are," he said softly. "But since it was your mother who told me that while she was holding a knife to my throat …"

     "Don't take it to heart," said Hu Li. "I am sure she will tell me some wise little dictum like that when she comes back to kill me."

     Snape said curiously, "What do you mean? Is this related to how your parents married?"

     "Oh, you didn't know?" she said miserably. "The vampire Sou Mei decided sixteen years that she wanted to produce a child that was a half-blood. She has many other full-vampire children, from many different vampire husbands, but this one, she wanted to be only half. She disguised herself as the daughter of a dead Chinese businessman and married my father. After I was born, it quickly it became apparent that I was not the vicious half-vampire that Sou Mei had longed for. She grew angry, revealed herself as the vampire Sou Mei, and left my father and I forever. I was three years old. However, she did not leave before swearing to my father that she would come back one day for her daughter and fight the final battle with her. Therefore he trained me in both Eastern and Western forms of combat. But still I have a feeling that when the final showdown comes, it will not be Hu Li Zhang who emerges the victor."

     Snape looked at her sympathetically. She went on, "And that's about where you come in. Though this was not known to my father until a few years after the Dark Lord's fall, Sou Mei was Voldemort's most respected and loved follower. She stood at his side through his whole reign of terror. That is how she knew you – when you were a Death Eater. When you left the circle of Death Eaters forever, Sou Mei went after you. Correct?"

     "Yes," he said wretchedly. "Why did she allow me to live? I am only haunted by my deeds."

     Hu Li told him sadly, "That's the point. She decided to leave you alive to live with the guilt of

your many murders and other evil deeds – Sou Mei is very familiar with the ways of humans.  She too left the Death Eaters after Voldemort's fall. She is the master of disguise, a virtuoso at lies and deception and murder. She has been in hiding for eleven years, showing herself occasionally to wizards and Muggles alike. Of course, then she kills them."

     Snape nodded, "Dumbledore told me that not all vampires kill their victims. I believe he said it's only necessary to take a small amount of blood to be sated for at least two weeks. But some, like Sou Mei, take pleasure in sucking the last drops of life from a human, claiming that the human's fear of impending death and the rush of adrenaline gave the blood an irresistible flavor." He shuddered and stared at her. "You look much like Sou Mei, you know," he said quietly. "Has that caused you problems before?"

     Hu Li thought of Parvati, Lavender, and Cecelia. "Yes," she replied sadly. "Most unfortunately." The three Gryffindor girls had been right. She did look like Sou Mei. But Sou Mei's face had a cold, immortal beauty that Hu Li's would never know, simply because Hu Li could never aspire to be Sou Mei. Sou Mei had an impressive aura of danger and power and infinite wisdom that no one on earth could duplicate. And she had strangely blue eyes – eyes like two chips of blue ice that stared right through someone - eyes like two cold sapphires that were unmistakably wicked. Suddenly Hu Li did not feel that she would be able to speak to the ten ambassadors tomorrow night. She didn't think she had it in her – neither the strength nor the honor. She was too fearful of Sou Mei.

     Hu Li said, almost to herself, "The Chinese translation of Sou Mei is 'the celebration of long life and everlasting beauty'. I have always thought it all too fitting."

     "Indeed," murmured Snape. "Indeed."