CHAPTER 16: DARKNESS BIDING
Harry stormed down the steps, not waiting for the escalator to carry him to the bottom, using every ounce of strength that he possessed to stop himself from screaming at them. He slumped against the wall, stopping the tears before they flowed with the back of his hand. So much to think about, and so little time...
What else does she have up her sleeve? Some healing power too? Next they'll be telling me she can read minds... He shuddered, knowing all too well that that was a distinct possibility.
Sirius, gone... His heart pounded with the realization.
Harry had thought he had known the depths of the Dark Lord's darkness when he had killed Cedric, had redefined his thoughts again when he had witnessed almost firsthand the massacre of Arlé's entire family, but this topped it off.
He promised that he would avenge all of those needless deaths and tortures...
His thoughts about Arlé softened a little, understanding her need for distance between anyone else she might get close to...
His mind darted back to the conversation between Bailey and Snape. "Although she would benefit from a teacher like Adalf..."
Struck with a sudden inspiration, he pulled a scrap of paper out of his pocket and scrawled out the full name.
Adalf Deerflada
And beneath that he wrote Arlé's name:
Erif Deerflada
He stared at the surname for a moment and then gasped in surprise.
Adalf Reed
And if you turned her name around like so...
Fire
Perhaps this will give me answers... He now knew where to begin searching. He raced to the library, nearly stepping on Mrs. Norris, the nasty janitor Filch's cat, in his hurry. As he strode into the library Madame Pince looked up from her desk with distaste. He could hear her muttering under her breath, "Those kids think they run the castle..."
Harry pulled out a heavy volume labeled Remarkable Wizards of the Twenty-first Century. In his dream at the end of the summer, hadn't they mentioned the "Reed Powers"? There must be something about Arlé's family name that could give him insight... He set to work with a vengeance, determined to find the answers that Arlé refused to give him.
* * *
Erif slipped out of the office just in time to meet up with Professor Snape. He scowled at her but was surprised to see her alone, without Harry. She thought she recognized the malicious smirk he tossed in her direction, and she had to remind herself, He's on our side...
She wandered around the grounds for a long while, hoping she would not run across anyone she knew. She was not much in a mood for talking to people...
Her thoughts wandered back to Harry. Was it his fault that everyone he was related to was destroyed by Voldemort's hand?
Her arm burned; she turned it over and looked at it in disgust for a moment, then looked away. When had she taken her potion last? Her brain was too saturated with information to find the answer. She guessed it had been the double dose before the Ball that was finally wearing off, but she didn't want to go find Summer. She would rather be alone in her thoughts...
Two students were coming her way, and she couldn't tell who they were because the sun was setting directly behind them. She thought she could make out orange hair on one of them, and decided that it might be Hermione and Ron. She could hear their words long before they could see her, and she was about to call a greeting to them when their tones made her stop.
"--knows what he's doing."
"Hermione, you can't really believe that she's all right?"
"Ron, I've already gone over this with you, she showed me something that I can't forget... but she's on our side."
"Then why does she have the Dark Mark?"
Erif sat still, glancing down at her forearm. He thought she had the Death Eater's mark? No wonder he was so suspicious of her...
"It's not the Dark Mark!" Hermione hissed and then added, "Besides if it were, don't you think Dumbledore would be keeping an eye on her?"
"I don't know, and I know that Dumbledore is a clever man, but perhaps she could have pulled the wool over his eyes?"
"No. I don't believe that." She shook her head and Erif realized how close they were... if she got up now they would see her.
They drew up beside the water almost five meters away from where Erif was perched on a tree root, and she tried not to make a sound. Hermione continued, "She's just a normal kid like Harry."
"Er, haven't you noticed, Hermione, Harry's not normal."
"Ron!" Hermione scolded. "You know what I mean."
"No, I don't know. Harry's different. He's stronger than us, Hermione. And sometimes he gets distant on me, like he's seeing something no one else can."
"Harry is a mystery to me," Hermione agreed, and there was deep silence for a time. Erif sneaked a look in their direction and saw that they were not looking in her direction, so she sneaked off unheard. When she glanced back, their bodies were close together, Hermione's head turned up to look at his.
She hid a smile and darted off past the greenhouses. Someone called her name, and she spun, expecting to meet up with Hermione's angry face. Instead, she saw a round face with bright orange curls peering at her from the door of one of the greenhouses.
"Ginny! Hi," she said wondering what she was doing out here. So much for having a spare moment for myself.
"Erif, I found this out here, and I can't figure out who's it is." Ginny held out with trembling fingers a wand. "I don't know what to do with it."
Erif took the wand and it sparked a little, making Ginny back up from the business end. Erif carefully pointed it the other way and muttered, "I don't know whose it is, it's not marked."
The ten inch wand was unmarked, glowing slightly. She turned it over in her hands, looking for any sign of ownership. She brought her own next to it, noticing that her oak-and-phoenix feather wand glowed as well. Upon closer examination she realized that her wand was glowing red, while the other wand glowed blue.
"I don't know whose it is," she stated after a time, lying hard. She knew a certain someone who had been last seen behind the Greenhouses... "Why don't you hold onto it and give it to Professor McGonagall when you get a chance?"
Ginny's eyes went wide. "No." She shook her head and continued, "You need to take it..." Erif stared at Ginny for a moment and then agreed, wondering what it was about the wand that made the smallest Weasley child so nervous. Perhaps it was the glowing that unsettled her...
* * *
Harry sighed and shut the book, glancing at the time. He would have to run to get into the Common Room before the curfew was upon him. He slid the book into its shelf alongside the other fifteen or so books he had searched through, squinting at the latest binding, which read, Ancient Runes and Symbols. He had known that book was a long shot, but if the redness on her arm didn't accumulate to the Dark Mark, it must stand from something else.
He indeed raced through the halls but found no trace of either Mrs. Norris or Filch. As he skidded to a halt and breathed the password to the Fat Lady, she stared down at him with a smirk. She made no comment however and he crept inside.
Ron and Hermione were sitting on the couch, a chessboard between them. Crookshanks was sitting in Hermione's lap, often obstructing her view with his bushy tail. Ron reached out and touched a piece, and the rook, guessing his intention, scooted in the proper direction. Hermione gasped and stared angrily at the piece that had just moved, as if by skewering it with her glare she could make it move back.
Arlé was sitting beside them in a giant armchair, a quill tucked behind one ear and what appeared to be the Potions assignment abandoned on her lap as she watched the match. Sitting in a rough semicircle around the fire were four or five second years, all laughing merrily at one joke that was being tossed from person to person. Up on the balcony that led to the boys dorms, Fred and George had identical twin grins as they watched their little brother playing the game.
Harry felt out of place; everyone here was close, and he felt suddenly distant, unsure of where he belonged. It was apparent that Hermione and Ron had repaired their rift and grown closer; while he was left behind in the dust relationship-wise.
Arlé noticed him then, and waved a hand at him to come over. He did so, noticing as he walked by the table that his and Ron's homework was still sprawled across it. She moved over in her giant armchair, leaving plenty of space for Harry to sit down.
Ron greeted him as he sank into the chair, but Hermione didn't even look up. She was pointing at pieces and muttering under her breath, eyes darting across the board.
"Why don't you two start up a game? We could be here a while," Ron stated, watching as Hermione's hand moved towards first one rook, then another, without actually touching either of them.
He looked at Arlé, who clearly thought that she was going to be beaten. "I don't know...my brothers never really played it with me. Two of them were too young, and the other one didn't like playing chess..."
"I thought you said that you had four brothers," Hermione said, glancing up from her board in surprise.
"I did... but Eric turned to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named... I no longer consider him a brother."
"Is he still alive?"
"I hope not," Arlé snarled with much hatred.
"But he was your brother!" Ron added, keeping his voice down. One of the second-years looked back at them; Ron smiled and waved, and he turned around again.
"He may have been my brother but he's not anymore, even if he is still alive..." Arlé glanced up at Harry and asked, "Are you still up to that game of chess?"
"Do you have a set?" Harry asked getting up from his seat.
"Yeah, it's in the dorm." She rose too, her hand brushing his as she did so. Harry walked past Fred and George, who began making kissing noises, making Harry blush ferociously. They watched him as he walked past, grins still on their faces.
When Harry returned with his set, the twins were no longer perched at the railing (to his relief). As a matter of fact, they were nowhere to be seen, quite possibly a worse situation than actually seeing them face to face.
Harry shrugged it off; they were probably thinking up ways to send toilet seats home... He met Arlé in front of the fire, the second-years that had been in the spot previously had probably gone up to bed. He placed the board down on the floor, and they began lining up their pieces. Her pieces were a deep blue set of marble, the details hand-crafted by a professional. As if she noticed that he was admiring them, she said, "My father made these for me when I was nine... I'm surprised they survived..." She trailed off uncomfortably and picked up her queen.
Harry wasn't sure what to say to that, and he was glad when she changed the subject. "Oh, before I forget," she said, and pulled a wand out of her pocket. "Ginny found this outside Greenhouse 3."
Harry accepted it and turned it over wondrously. "So why didn't Lucius Malfoy take it when he came for his son?"
"Perhaps he didn't know that Draco had it." She took it back and said, "I'm going to give it to McGonagall tomorrow morning, I don't trust it."
"I'll take it," he offered, but she shook her head, offering no explanation.
"Let's play," she stated, avoiding the subject, and Harry dropped it. She moved her piece, and Harry was soon caught up in strategy. Despite her allegation that she was out of practice, she played a very aggressive game and Harry was hard pressed to keep his pieces up with hers.
He kept bumping hands with her as their pieces swept across the board, and he noticed as he did so that her forearm was slightly red.
And he couldn't help but wonder—for one fleeting moment—if Draco could possibly be the Ice the legend spoke of...
* * *
He shifted on the surface, his mind feeling like it had been tampered with. It was like waking up from a bad dream... only somewhere in the back of his dormant mind, he knew it was real.
Harsh voices darted through his consciousness, stabbing at the small thoughts he was forming and severing them with brutality, leaving him floating again. He lowered his eyelids automatically as a light came on near him, and he could hear somewhere in the room the flicker and crack of a fire.
"Did it work?" Demanded a hissing voice close to him. Her felt long cold fingers brush against his arm, and he fought down a shiver.
"We were able to revive him, it only remains to be seen how much of his mind actually returned." The second voice sounded more human yet no less cold.
"I hope you aren't wasting my time, my faithful Death Eater," the hissing voice murmured. "If I am found here the consequences could be dire to all involved."
"Master, I would not wish that you would be found."
"Good." The silence protruded on his thoughts more than the words did.
His eyes fluttered open, his curiosity peaked. Blurred shapes flooded his vision and started to take focus.
"Good, it works," the first voiced hissed. With that voice came the slight feeling that something was out of place...
A burning pain seared up his arm as the cold fingers touched his forearm, bringing out the mark that caused all of this nonsense in the first place. With that mark came the realization of where he was, and what had happened... He struggled to get up, get away, but was held down by his father's own traitorous hands.
"Draco, welcome," the hissing voice murmured, and Draco Malfoy looked up into the bright red eyes looming in his vision with his own grey eyes filled with hatred. The face contorted into an evil grin, and the laugh that escaped the snake-like features was more like a hiss. "Keep your eyes on this one, Malfoy, I shall return for him later." And with a flash, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named disappeared. His eyes glowed in the spot he had vacated, lingering on as if to tell father and son that he would be watching...
(A/N-- Review please!!!)
Harry stormed down the steps, not waiting for the escalator to carry him to the bottom, using every ounce of strength that he possessed to stop himself from screaming at them. He slumped against the wall, stopping the tears before they flowed with the back of his hand. So much to think about, and so little time...
What else does she have up her sleeve? Some healing power too? Next they'll be telling me she can read minds... He shuddered, knowing all too well that that was a distinct possibility.
Sirius, gone... His heart pounded with the realization.
Harry had thought he had known the depths of the Dark Lord's darkness when he had killed Cedric, had redefined his thoughts again when he had witnessed almost firsthand the massacre of Arlé's entire family, but this topped it off.
He promised that he would avenge all of those needless deaths and tortures...
His thoughts about Arlé softened a little, understanding her need for distance between anyone else she might get close to...
His mind darted back to the conversation between Bailey and Snape. "Although she would benefit from a teacher like Adalf..."
Struck with a sudden inspiration, he pulled a scrap of paper out of his pocket and scrawled out the full name.
Adalf Deerflada
And beneath that he wrote Arlé's name:
Erif Deerflada
He stared at the surname for a moment and then gasped in surprise.
Adalf Reed
And if you turned her name around like so...
Fire
Perhaps this will give me answers... He now knew where to begin searching. He raced to the library, nearly stepping on Mrs. Norris, the nasty janitor Filch's cat, in his hurry. As he strode into the library Madame Pince looked up from her desk with distaste. He could hear her muttering under her breath, "Those kids think they run the castle..."
Harry pulled out a heavy volume labeled Remarkable Wizards of the Twenty-first Century. In his dream at the end of the summer, hadn't they mentioned the "Reed Powers"? There must be something about Arlé's family name that could give him insight... He set to work with a vengeance, determined to find the answers that Arlé refused to give him.
* * *
Erif slipped out of the office just in time to meet up with Professor Snape. He scowled at her but was surprised to see her alone, without Harry. She thought she recognized the malicious smirk he tossed in her direction, and she had to remind herself, He's on our side...
She wandered around the grounds for a long while, hoping she would not run across anyone she knew. She was not much in a mood for talking to people...
Her thoughts wandered back to Harry. Was it his fault that everyone he was related to was destroyed by Voldemort's hand?
Her arm burned; she turned it over and looked at it in disgust for a moment, then looked away. When had she taken her potion last? Her brain was too saturated with information to find the answer. She guessed it had been the double dose before the Ball that was finally wearing off, but she didn't want to go find Summer. She would rather be alone in her thoughts...
Two students were coming her way, and she couldn't tell who they were because the sun was setting directly behind them. She thought she could make out orange hair on one of them, and decided that it might be Hermione and Ron. She could hear their words long before they could see her, and she was about to call a greeting to them when their tones made her stop.
"--knows what he's doing."
"Hermione, you can't really believe that she's all right?"
"Ron, I've already gone over this with you, she showed me something that I can't forget... but she's on our side."
"Then why does she have the Dark Mark?"
Erif sat still, glancing down at her forearm. He thought she had the Death Eater's mark? No wonder he was so suspicious of her...
"It's not the Dark Mark!" Hermione hissed and then added, "Besides if it were, don't you think Dumbledore would be keeping an eye on her?"
"I don't know, and I know that Dumbledore is a clever man, but perhaps she could have pulled the wool over his eyes?"
"No. I don't believe that." She shook her head and Erif realized how close they were... if she got up now they would see her.
They drew up beside the water almost five meters away from where Erif was perched on a tree root, and she tried not to make a sound. Hermione continued, "She's just a normal kid like Harry."
"Er, haven't you noticed, Hermione, Harry's not normal."
"Ron!" Hermione scolded. "You know what I mean."
"No, I don't know. Harry's different. He's stronger than us, Hermione. And sometimes he gets distant on me, like he's seeing something no one else can."
"Harry is a mystery to me," Hermione agreed, and there was deep silence for a time. Erif sneaked a look in their direction and saw that they were not looking in her direction, so she sneaked off unheard. When she glanced back, their bodies were close together, Hermione's head turned up to look at his.
She hid a smile and darted off past the greenhouses. Someone called her name, and she spun, expecting to meet up with Hermione's angry face. Instead, she saw a round face with bright orange curls peering at her from the door of one of the greenhouses.
"Ginny! Hi," she said wondering what she was doing out here. So much for having a spare moment for myself.
"Erif, I found this out here, and I can't figure out who's it is." Ginny held out with trembling fingers a wand. "I don't know what to do with it."
Erif took the wand and it sparked a little, making Ginny back up from the business end. Erif carefully pointed it the other way and muttered, "I don't know whose it is, it's not marked."
The ten inch wand was unmarked, glowing slightly. She turned it over in her hands, looking for any sign of ownership. She brought her own next to it, noticing that her oak-and-phoenix feather wand glowed as well. Upon closer examination she realized that her wand was glowing red, while the other wand glowed blue.
"I don't know whose it is," she stated after a time, lying hard. She knew a certain someone who had been last seen behind the Greenhouses... "Why don't you hold onto it and give it to Professor McGonagall when you get a chance?"
Ginny's eyes went wide. "No." She shook her head and continued, "You need to take it..." Erif stared at Ginny for a moment and then agreed, wondering what it was about the wand that made the smallest Weasley child so nervous. Perhaps it was the glowing that unsettled her...
* * *
Harry sighed and shut the book, glancing at the time. He would have to run to get into the Common Room before the curfew was upon him. He slid the book into its shelf alongside the other fifteen or so books he had searched through, squinting at the latest binding, which read, Ancient Runes and Symbols. He had known that book was a long shot, but if the redness on her arm didn't accumulate to the Dark Mark, it must stand from something else.
He indeed raced through the halls but found no trace of either Mrs. Norris or Filch. As he skidded to a halt and breathed the password to the Fat Lady, she stared down at him with a smirk. She made no comment however and he crept inside.
Ron and Hermione were sitting on the couch, a chessboard between them. Crookshanks was sitting in Hermione's lap, often obstructing her view with his bushy tail. Ron reached out and touched a piece, and the rook, guessing his intention, scooted in the proper direction. Hermione gasped and stared angrily at the piece that had just moved, as if by skewering it with her glare she could make it move back.
Arlé was sitting beside them in a giant armchair, a quill tucked behind one ear and what appeared to be the Potions assignment abandoned on her lap as she watched the match. Sitting in a rough semicircle around the fire were four or five second years, all laughing merrily at one joke that was being tossed from person to person. Up on the balcony that led to the boys dorms, Fred and George had identical twin grins as they watched their little brother playing the game.
Harry felt out of place; everyone here was close, and he felt suddenly distant, unsure of where he belonged. It was apparent that Hermione and Ron had repaired their rift and grown closer; while he was left behind in the dust relationship-wise.
Arlé noticed him then, and waved a hand at him to come over. He did so, noticing as he walked by the table that his and Ron's homework was still sprawled across it. She moved over in her giant armchair, leaving plenty of space for Harry to sit down.
Ron greeted him as he sank into the chair, but Hermione didn't even look up. She was pointing at pieces and muttering under her breath, eyes darting across the board.
"Why don't you two start up a game? We could be here a while," Ron stated, watching as Hermione's hand moved towards first one rook, then another, without actually touching either of them.
He looked at Arlé, who clearly thought that she was going to be beaten. "I don't know...my brothers never really played it with me. Two of them were too young, and the other one didn't like playing chess..."
"I thought you said that you had four brothers," Hermione said, glancing up from her board in surprise.
"I did... but Eric turned to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named... I no longer consider him a brother."
"Is he still alive?"
"I hope not," Arlé snarled with much hatred.
"But he was your brother!" Ron added, keeping his voice down. One of the second-years looked back at them; Ron smiled and waved, and he turned around again.
"He may have been my brother but he's not anymore, even if he is still alive..." Arlé glanced up at Harry and asked, "Are you still up to that game of chess?"
"Do you have a set?" Harry asked getting up from his seat.
"Yeah, it's in the dorm." She rose too, her hand brushing his as she did so. Harry walked past Fred and George, who began making kissing noises, making Harry blush ferociously. They watched him as he walked past, grins still on their faces.
When Harry returned with his set, the twins were no longer perched at the railing (to his relief). As a matter of fact, they were nowhere to be seen, quite possibly a worse situation than actually seeing them face to face.
Harry shrugged it off; they were probably thinking up ways to send toilet seats home... He met Arlé in front of the fire, the second-years that had been in the spot previously had probably gone up to bed. He placed the board down on the floor, and they began lining up their pieces. Her pieces were a deep blue set of marble, the details hand-crafted by a professional. As if she noticed that he was admiring them, she said, "My father made these for me when I was nine... I'm surprised they survived..." She trailed off uncomfortably and picked up her queen.
Harry wasn't sure what to say to that, and he was glad when she changed the subject. "Oh, before I forget," she said, and pulled a wand out of her pocket. "Ginny found this outside Greenhouse 3."
Harry accepted it and turned it over wondrously. "So why didn't Lucius Malfoy take it when he came for his son?"
"Perhaps he didn't know that Draco had it." She took it back and said, "I'm going to give it to McGonagall tomorrow morning, I don't trust it."
"I'll take it," he offered, but she shook her head, offering no explanation.
"Let's play," she stated, avoiding the subject, and Harry dropped it. She moved her piece, and Harry was soon caught up in strategy. Despite her allegation that she was out of practice, she played a very aggressive game and Harry was hard pressed to keep his pieces up with hers.
He kept bumping hands with her as their pieces swept across the board, and he noticed as he did so that her forearm was slightly red.
And he couldn't help but wonder—for one fleeting moment—if Draco could possibly be the Ice the legend spoke of...
* * *
He shifted on the surface, his mind feeling like it had been tampered with. It was like waking up from a bad dream... only somewhere in the back of his dormant mind, he knew it was real.
Harsh voices darted through his consciousness, stabbing at the small thoughts he was forming and severing them with brutality, leaving him floating again. He lowered his eyelids automatically as a light came on near him, and he could hear somewhere in the room the flicker and crack of a fire.
"Did it work?" Demanded a hissing voice close to him. Her felt long cold fingers brush against his arm, and he fought down a shiver.
"We were able to revive him, it only remains to be seen how much of his mind actually returned." The second voice sounded more human yet no less cold.
"I hope you aren't wasting my time, my faithful Death Eater," the hissing voice murmured. "If I am found here the consequences could be dire to all involved."
"Master, I would not wish that you would be found."
"Good." The silence protruded on his thoughts more than the words did.
His eyes fluttered open, his curiosity peaked. Blurred shapes flooded his vision and started to take focus.
"Good, it works," the first voiced hissed. With that voice came the slight feeling that something was out of place...
A burning pain seared up his arm as the cold fingers touched his forearm, bringing out the mark that caused all of this nonsense in the first place. With that mark came the realization of where he was, and what had happened... He struggled to get up, get away, but was held down by his father's own traitorous hands.
"Draco, welcome," the hissing voice murmured, and Draco Malfoy looked up into the bright red eyes looming in his vision with his own grey eyes filled with hatred. The face contorted into an evil grin, and the laugh that escaped the snake-like features was more like a hiss. "Keep your eyes on this one, Malfoy, I shall return for him later." And with a flash, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named disappeared. His eyes glowed in the spot he had vacated, lingering on as if to tell father and son that he would be watching...
(A/N-- Review please!!!)