Beggars Can´t Be Choosers
by Verity
Chapter Eight
She is not in mother´s tower.
That is her first thought. Her second: that where she is looks very, very familiar. It is Dumbledore´s office.
To her surprise, she´s lying on a couch, which she has not previously noticed as being in the circular room. To her even greater surprise, Professor Snape is hanging over her, looking concerned, while Dumbledore rummages in a large, lacquered cabinet. Dumbledore seems to be saying something, but try as she might, she cannot make out the words.
It´s almost another world. She looks to her right, at the large armchair that sits before Dumbledore´s desk perhaps five feet away; there is the Lamp Bearer. She thinks that she has never really seen the Lamp-Bearer before, in spite of the visions – there is a dark quality to the other woman that she couldn´t perceive, earlier. The Lamp-Bearer still wears the dress of the first vision – the winter-sky blue shift, loose against her thinness – and her face is still long and oval, but her eyes are unguarded. Unconsciously, she thinks – Malfoy´s eyes.
Shh, the Lamp-Bearer says, placing a finger over her lips, and she understands – anything she says here will have to be said in dreamspeak.
Why are you here? she asks.
Mother has no power over the dream world – save that she can open the door for you when she wishes. You saw the visions she sent you. Do you know what they were, Walker of Two Worlds?/P>
It comes to her suddenly. Mother would ask that of you?
Mother, replies the Lamp-Bearer drily, would not hesitate to ask that of any Sibyll. She means to take you, you know, as she would have taken me if the situation had allowed. She has already infiltrated your body.
I know, she sighs. It´s the Ordeal.
I know what mother plans for you. And I know what the dream world holds. These two things can be balanced, if you are willing to play the game.
I want a fair trade, she says smoothly. I want your name, that will call you from Heaven, Hell, the dream world and beyond; and your promise to help me when you can; and I want you to swear those things to be true.
You trust too easily, Walker of Two Worlds. But the Lamp-Bearer seems a little amused.
Why shouldn´t I trust you? she asks, reasonably.
True. Dream wraiths have always held to the truth. Let me tell you what I ask, first, before you agree.
Very well.
I ask that you betray mother. I ask that you kill, not in self-defense, but strike out to slay those who commit injustice against you by their very being. I ask that you save a man whom you have never liked, who has been cruel to you in the fast and does not easily change his ways. But in return – you will deliver the Boy Who Lived from mother´s promised death and you will deliver an innocent boy from Hell. The Lamp-Bearer slips back into silence. She looks tired; her aura is as black as night, the aura of those who have neither the strength to live as ghosts nor the wish to slip quietly into the night.
I´ll do it, she answers at last, after what seems hours of thinking.
My name was Lux LeMalfois, says Lamp-Bearer, and I will do all I can to aid you This I swear
The next thing she hears is a hazy voice, as if through miles of water, but she recognizes it. Snape. He is calling, Miss Granger, please wake up and so she does, and Hermione is perplexed to find her body on the floor
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Come, come, Severus, we can´t waste time, the Headmaster said, throwing him a piece of chalk. I can´t do this alone, with or without your help. The Star within a square, will you?
Severus watched numbly as Albus made his way over to a black laquered cabinet that contained his Pensieve. What on earth are you doing? he hissed. It´ll kill her!
Nonsense, nonsense, Albus insisted, opening the cabinet´s doors, Another shelf appeared within the black cabinet, this one holding innumerable candles of every shade of the rainbow. Albus selected five ivory-colored ones and then shut the cabinet. We´re just going to invite mother to have a cup of tea with some of her friends. She won´t take offense. It´s happened before.
Albus smiled, a smile that seemed to indulge itself in nostalgia. My Ordeal. A hundred and thirty years ago, almost exactly. Unfortunately, mother wanted me to do some things that would have killed me had Katherina not drawn her out and then given me a crash course in calling spirits. Which is what I´m going to do now. Might I have the chalk, if you´d rather I do it myself?
Severus nodded, silent. Most wizards were quite content with their own powers and the last time he´d heard of anyone calling Guardians
It´s because you´re a Sibyll, isn´t it, he said at last.
Albus nodded, not looking up from the design he was chalking on the wooden floor. Voldemort has stirred Guardians of the Watchtower in his time, Severus. All great wizards have, whether they know it or not. There. He set the five candles out, each on a point of the star, and murmured,
With the candles alight, the Headmaster turned to Severus. Could you place Miss Granger within the star?
Severus was glad of something to do. He realized, oddly, that he was worried about Hermione Granger, but rationalized it: after all, she´d saved his life.
Or this mother creature had. He didn´t really like to think about it.
Gently, he picked up Hermione´s lithe little body – Don´t think about her like that, he reprimanded himself, but it was too late – he was also noticing the lovely silkiness of her hair again, the pretty cinnamon shade of her eyes – they were open now, which he took as a good sign.
All too soon she was out of his arms and on the floor, within the star. Dumbledore spoke some words that he decided, after a few minutes, were Celtic or Gaelic, two languages he had only a passing familiarity with. Winds whistled through the room.
Suddenly, the candles burst into full, all-consuming flame that swallowed up even the wax – and he winced, fearing for the girl within the star. But the flames did not touch her – merely burned brightly until, suddenly, falling into ash.
Miss Granger, please wake up, he found himself pleading, softly.
She blinked. Well, I guess he isn´t so horrible she said, dreamily, and for some odd reason, he seemed to hear a dark chuckle coming from the direction of Albus´s armchair.
Severus wondered – in a foolishly hopeful way he knew could only be self-destructive – whether he could be the he she referred to
The awakening ritual couldn´t have been done without The Complete Idiot´s Guide to Wicca and Witchcraft, which has become my handy resource for Sibyll workings.
I know I keep promising more S/H, less mother. Soon. Until then, I´ve just done a wee S/H triad called Silent Prison– snogs! Actual snogs! Hurrah! *wink*
Verity
