Disclaimer: Same as front.
English translations of Latin words are at the bottom of the page. :)
Chapter 2: O Fortuna
"It may sound absurd… but don't be naïve,
Even heroes have
the right to bleed.
I may be
disturbed… but won't you concede,
Even heroes have
the right to dream.
It's not easy to
be me."
- Five for Fighting
::: two weeks later :::
Harry Potter had no idea where he was. The darkness around him enveloped him and suffocated him like a blanket. He desperately clawed around him, searching for a wall, a door- anything- but his hands grasped nothing but air. Fearing the worst, he reached into his robes for his wand, only to discover it missing. Harry stood, rooted to his spot, his breaths shallow and fearful.
Eventually, his eyes became accustomed to the darkness. He made out that he was in a medium-sized room with walls made completely of cold stone. Running to one, he felt its wet bricks, searching through the nooks and crannies for some sort of spring that would trigger a door. His hands stopped wandering when he heard a noise in the far corner.
A chill crept from the bottom of Harry's spine to his hairline. He didn't want to turn around, but he knew that there was no avoiding it.
That's when the singing started.
"O Fortuna"
The voice was a loud baritone, full and rich, yet something sinister rung in its echoes.
"Velut luna."
Harry's very bones felt cold as he backed quickly away from the voice. Two steps and he hit the wall.
"Statu variabilis."
A great black shape left the corner, and Harry's heart leaped in his chest.
"Semper crescis,
Aut decrescis."
The thing crept closer and though it sang like a man, Harry was fairly sure by the way it walked that it wasn't.
"Vita detestabilis."
The wall was hard, and his entire body was pressed up against it, shivering as the creature came into focus.
"Nunc obdurat.
Et tunc curat,
Ludo
mentis aciem."
The voice was now close enough for Harry to see the mouth moving. A monstrous gaping chasm it was, lined with three rows of razor pointed teeth. And it grinned as it advanced.
"Egestatem,
Potestatem.
Dissolvit ut glaciem."
Harry opened his mouth to scream but his fear chocked it. The giant jaws were upon him, hovering around his head. He shut his eyes tightly and waited for the pain. He was falling… falling…
Harry woke with a jolt to the blinding golden light that filled the train compartment.
"Harry, are you all right?" Hermione Granger sat on the seat across from Harry, her brown eyes filled with concern.
"Yeah…" Harry replied, massaging his throbbing temples. "I think so." The singing was over, the beast gone, and the Hogwarts Express rumbled under his feet.
"Did you have a nightmare?" asked Ron Weasley, his best friend, who sat next to Hermione. "What was it about?"
"Uh…" Harry knew his friends too well: Ron would get frightened and Hermione would worry herself needlessly if he told them. "Can't quite remember."
Hermione eyed him with a look that clearly labeled him a liar, but Ron just shrugged. "As long as you're ok now. It was just a dream anyway." He picked up a Chocolate Frog from next to him. "Want one?"
Harry nodded and Ron tossed the candy to him. Opening its shiny wrapper, he clutched the frog before it could jump away and shoved it in his mouth. Turning over the Famous Witches and Wizards Card inside, he let out a gasp. Staring back at him, his fake eye swiveling aimlessly, was Mad-Eye Moody, Hogwarts' Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher from the previous year. Of course he had been driven away by some unknown force like all the other Defense Against the Dark Arts teachers Harry had had.
Harry turned the card around to show Ron and Hermione. "Hey," cried Ron, "I don't have that one!" Harry gave him the card and Hermione shook her head.
"I don't understand how one school can go through so many Defense Against the Dark Arts teachers in so short a time." Hermione crossed her arms.
"Dunno," said Ron. "Do you reckon it's jinxed?"
Hermione glared at him. "You can jinx a teaching position, Ron."
Ron narrowed his eyes. "And how would you know that?"
"Because she's Hermione," Harry smiled. "If she says it can't be jinxed, it can't be jinxed."
Hermione's cheeks turned scarlet as Ron pouted. Poor Ron was always wrong when Hermione was around
"So who are we gonna scare off this year?" asked Harry.
"Person's gotta be stupid if you ask me," Ron replied bitterly, without looking at Hermione. "You couldn't pay me enough to take that job."
"It could be Snape," Hermione offered.
"I hope so," said Ron, pocketing his wizard card. "There's one I'd like to scare off."
"Well that shouldn't be too hard, Weasley. The state of your robes is frightening enough."
All three turned to the unexpected voice at the door. Draco Malfoy stood behind the threshold, a malevolent smile plastered to his face much like the platinum hair to his head. Behind him, his two troll-like flunkies, Crabbe and Goyle, guffawed at Draco's lame excuse for a joke.
Hermione rolled her eyes and sighed. "Honestly, Malfoy," she said. "Do you have to come in here and annoy us? Do you even have a reason for being in here?"
"Well it sure as hell isn't to see your ugly face, Granger," Draco replied with a smirk.
Hermione's mouth formed a shocked "O", then closed tightly in anger. Ron was on his feet immediately. A look of concern briefly crossed Draco's face as Ron, who had grown several inches that summer, practically pressed his nose against Draco's. "Look, Malfoy," hissed Ron. "Just state your business and get going." Ron turned the color of his hair and he fumbled in his robe for something that probably wasn't a Chocolate Frog.
If Harry had blinked, he would have missed Draco's nanosecond of fear. "Calm down, Weasley," Draco scoffed, brushing past Ron into the compartment. "Wouldn't want to give your family any more tragedies than it already has."
Draco smoothed his robes as Ron looked over his shoulder with contempt. Malfoy was the quintessence of a pureblood: obnoxiously wealthy, horrifically cruel, eternally snobbish. His cold gray eyes rested on Harry, his white teeth glowing behind his sneer.
"What?" Harry deadpanned.
"Have you ever considered being… and Auror, Potter?" Draco's look turned faux innocent.
Somewhere deep inside Harry his blood boiled, but he kept it down. "Shove off, Malfoy," he spat.
"No really, Potter. I think you'd make a great Auror." Crabbe and Goyle giggled outside the door.
"That's not funny," said Hermione, her eyebrows drawn. "It's not funny at all."
"Oh, I'm not being funny, Granger." Draco said, spinning on his heel to face her. "I'm completely serious. Boy he'd sure have fun fighting those dark wizards." He chuckled, then became deadly serious. "Until they get him too, that is," he hissed, his face glowing. "So powerful, those Aurors. Nothing can kill them. They'll always be…"
With one swift jerk, Ron grabbed Draco by his robes and threw his from the room. He crashed into Crabbe and Goyle, bouncing off their gigantic forms with a shocked cry. Ron slammed the door to the compartment, and the lock clicked into place. "Bastard," he muttered, and dropped onto his seat next to Hermione.
Harry stared at his feet. He put his hand in the pocket inside his robe and closed his fingers around the crumpled paper. Pulling it out, he carefully unfolded it and smoothed it on his lap.
"AUROR FOUND DEAD IN DUBLIN ALLEY," the front page of The Daily Prophet blared. The blurry black and white photo below it showed a lump covered in a white sheet, the dead Auror's body, and several Ministry of Magical Law Enforcement members wandering around, faces grave.
"I'll bet the Ministry's in a going crazy," said Hermione, glancing at Harry's newspaper clipping.
"Are you kidding?" cried Ron. "The Ministry's in a tizzy. Even my dad's feeling the effects. They had him stay until three in the morning once."
"Do they have any leads?" Hermione asked, leaning forward.
"Not a one," said Harry, shaking his head. "They believe it's tied to Voldemort though." The room became suddenly silent. The Dark Lord's name was still not used in conversation, especially not now.
"It's just so hard to understand," said Hermione softly, resting her elbows upon her knees and her chin in her open hands. "I mean, he had the Avada Kedavra hexes all over him, and yet his wrists were slit to the point where there was significant blood loss. Why would somebody bother…?" She trailed off.
"Never mind that!" Ron exclaimed, "He was an Auror! They're supposed to be invincible! If You-Know-Who's got a one up on the Aurors then we're all screwed."
The cabin lapsed into silence once more and Harry sighed. Somewhere, Voldemort sat waiting. Biding his time. Plotting for when Harry would next fall into his clutches so he could finish him off. Why me? Thought Harry, What have I done to deserve this? It's not my fault I survived. As far as he knew, Harry was Number 1 on Voldemort's "to kill" list, and he, for the life of him, couldn't see what the big fuss was all about. He was just Harry, nothing more special about him than any other student at Hogwarts. But then did other Hogwarts students have dreams about giant razor sharp jaws closing in on them? Harry shuddered and prayed that this dream was not prophetic. What did it mean? Perhaps he would say something to Dumbledore.
"Harry?" Hermione's soft voice brought him back to earth. "I never got a chance to tell you- congratulations on making prefect."
Harry beamed. The looks on the Dursleys' faces were priceless when they read that letter. "Same to you," he replied. There was no doubt in his mind that Hermione would be a prefect.
Their eyes moved slowed to Ron who smirked in response. "Who do I look like? Percy?" he said. "I'm glad I'm not a prefect. I hope this doesn't mean that we're not going to have fun breaking rules anymore or that anyone is going to get on their high horse." His gaze fixed on Hermione.
"No way," replied Harry. "We're still gonna be ourselves."
"Well…" Hermione protested, but quickly shut her mouth. They both knew that Dumbledore had been extremely generous in giving them their positions after all the school rules they had broken in the previous four years.
"We won't desert you, Ron," Harry said confidently.
"Good," said Ron with a smile. "Enjoy your bathroom privileges."
"And sharing them with Malfoy," Hermione sputtered.
"What?" cried Ron, "How do you know he's a prefect?"
"He was wearing his badge," Hermione brushed some loose strands of hair out of her eyes. "It was on his left shoulder. You must have missed it in your… anger."
Ron gaped at the floor. "How could Dumbledore have given that rotten scum prefect status?"
"Well, rotten scum that he is, he does have some of the highest marks in Slytherin House," Hermione said matter-of-factly. "He's quite clever, really."
"And how in the world do you know all this?" Ron asked incredulously.
"I just do, ok?"
"Five minutes until we pull into the station," the raspy voice of the all-call interrupted. "Gather all of your belongings and prepare to unload."
Harry folded his newspaper clipping and placed it back in his pocket. Pulling his luggage down from the overhead compartment, he checked on Hedwig, who dozed quietly in her cage next to Harry.
Hermione retrieved her monstrous ginger cat Crookshanks from atop her luggage and proceeded to give him a thorough petting, complete with cooing noises, as though she were talking to a baby and not a small lion. Ron looked on in horror.
"That cat's still a bloody menace," he whispered to Harry.
"Oh hush," replied Hermione. "You're just jealous."
The train slowed to a stop in Hogwarts Station and Harry looked out at the magnificent castle he called home. Warm lights lit the turrets that seemed to touch the sky, and lanterns floated in the lake like lily pads to help guide the students across it. Standing up, Harry gripped his luggage in one hand and Hedwig's cage in the other.
"Oh, Harry," Hermione called as she exited the compartment after him, "how many scrolls did you write for Snape's summer assignment?"
"Two," Harry answered over his shoulder. "That's what he asked for, right?" All he needed was for his most dreaded class to start off on a bad foot.
"Yeah," said Hermione distractedly, "but I did three. Just to be sure, you know."
Ron stopped dead in the corridor. "We had Potions homework?" A confused look crossed his face.
"Yes," said Hermione in exasperation. "Don't you remember? Ancient uses of dragon's blood and how it is applied today?"
A faint look of remembrance filled Ron's eyes, then panic. "Oh," He gulped. "Bloody hell!" The trio stepped out of the train and Ron grabbed Hermione's robes. "Hermione!" He gasped, "I completely forgot! You have to let me copy you!"
"Absolutely not," she replied, wrenching herself free from his grip. "I'll help you write it, but Snape would realize right away if you copied mine."
Ron sighed. "Great," he moaned, looking down at his rumbling stomach. "Guess I'm not eating tonight."
Harry, Ron, and Hermione pushed their way through the crowd of students, waving happily at the ones they knew. Seamus Finnegan and Dean Thomas were going on about some quidditch match they had been to, while Neville Longbottom looked lost as usual, dragging his luggage on ground and holding the cage of his toad Trevor.
"All first years o'er here!" Boomed Hagrid, as the young children looked ridiculous gathering around his massive form. He waved at Harry, who smiled back.
Reaching the lake, the three companions piled into one of the horseless carriages and shoved off for the castle. The night air was muggy from the previous week's storms, and it fell heavily on Harry's cheeks. The wind rustled his hair and blew it back from his forehead, caressing the scar that had brought him all this. But as he looked up at the castle, a feeling of warmth replaced the cold pit that had formed in his stomach since awakening from the dream.
He smiled to himself. He was safe. He was home.
~*~*~
English translation in order:
"Oh Fortune,
like the moon,
ever changing,
always increasing,
or diminishing;
detestable life,
now is harsh,
and then it playful,
nurses the mind's pain,
and destitution;
power,
it dissolves like ice."
So did you like it? Comments? Concerns? I appreciate all forms of feedback. Thanks!