But there was certainly use for a spell that could hide a person in the night and produce a convincing illusion of them where they were supposed to be. One could move armies under its protection, help those fleeing persecution (or prison). Or conceal a lover. Spells were double-edged swords: very few existed that were either pure good or pure evil.
So now lying in her bed was an image of her, which would appear perfect to anyone, unless they chanced to touch it. But then, nobody entered her quarters without knocking, especially when she was asleep, and they certainly didn't shake her awake. For the time being, they were all right, so long as Cinderella left the ball, as it were, before the first rays of dawn shattered the spell.
Of course, they couldn't do this every night, she realized. The Cloak of Night lost strength if used too much, and Illusions were a great drain upon one's magical powers. And too, in the months since Dumbledore's death and Hogwart's turn to martial law, there had been much to occupy their minds besides the typical activity of the newly wed.
Shivering a little in the crisp late April air, she pulled her dressing gown a bit tighter around herself. Completely unable to sleep right then, with too much on her mind. She turned and saw that he wasn't asleep, his dark gaze studying her in the glow of moonlight. "Thinking?" she asked succinctly.
A slight nod. He got out of bed, reaching almost instinctively for the dressing gown thrown over the chair and slipping it on over his pajamas. She had been quite amused to see that none of his night garb was the trademark black. The pajamas were blue stripe and the dressing gown a rich Slytherin green.
But then, he didn't have to keep up his image in his sleep: that she knew from watching him on the few nights they had shared. In sleep, when the lines of old grief and guilt eased out from his face, he looked at peace, almost boyishly innocent. He was handsome when he chose to be, though most of the time he still convinced himself that a scowl and the eternal mourning of black was the only face he had right to present to the world. At least that had slipped a few notches in the fury of preparing for Voldemort. There was no time for self-loathing when training frantically.
Slowly, in bits and trickles, they had gained more allies. Rhiannon Goin, Headmistress of the Great Orme Auror's Academy in Llandudno, an old friend of Minerva's, and a few of her students who felt that Gwalch's tactics negated the oath of loyalty they had taken to the Ministry upon entry to the Academy. Some valuable healers: several of Diaramuid McGonagall's coworkers at St. Mungo's. A few licensed Aurors who also decided that the loyalty oath was so much rubbish.
The forces at Hogwarts still stood at a paltry eighty-seven, and half of them were mere children: sixth and seventh years. This, against fifty-eight Death Eaters, at last count, and God knew how many Dark servants Voldemort had drawn from among the creatures of night. It was bleak, but morning after morning, brave faces were put upon and nerves steeled to face what was to come.
The day began at eight AM promptly, and she had slowly gotten used to the idea that forcefully waking up exhausted late sleepers in her capacity as Head of Gryffindor truly was in their best interest. Every minute of every day was needed: only Sundays were had off to prevent everyone from working literally to death.
At least the coming of allies had provided them with people to oversee the day's training. She and Rhiannon oversaw the DADA (unofficially renamed Defense Against the Death Eaters) classes for the sixth and seventh years. Severus and Sherlock Holmes were madly at work teaching necessary Potions and stockpiling the results. Diaramuid and John Watson were teaching field Mediwizardry to those who had shown an aptitude, and everyone else had their niche to fill in the operation. Even the first years were getting the magical workout of their lives under the tutelage of hardened veterans. Not that they would be fighting, but they had to be ready for what was to come, nonetheless. If caught unawares, it could become a massacre.
"Come back to bed," he said quietly, taking hold of her hand. "You need your rest. We all do." He glanced out the window briefly himself. Wearily she lay down and despite all her fears and trepidation, exhaustion assured that she fell fast asleep.
Breakfast was for the most part a quieter affair, as usual. Though there were still some hints of normalcy: a peal of laughter, young lovers gazing soulfully at each other, and the sort. The latter was particularly in effect for the young Head Boy sitting beside her: he was involved in a round of soulful gazing with a person at the Gryffindor table. To her surprise, she saw it wasn't his old flame, Hester Latterly, but Hester's friend, sixth-year prefect Margaret Ballinger. Well, so much the better: she wondered how long the two had been together. It had come to a bit of a fight two years ago between Oliver and young William Monk over Hester. She still smiled to remember that Hester had refused to have anything to do with either of them for a month after.
She then looked down the table, past Severus and Draco, seeing Harry sitting beside Ron, staring off into space as he idly ate. It was an old habit she still remembered: his letting his mind wander at meals. She worried, though: there was a new darkness in those green eyes, ever since he had returned from the mission he had taken upon himself to eliminate Liam Haverforth. He had done the job: the Daily Prophet had confirmed it. A neat, quick task; no dawdling or torture about it.
But there was something about using Avada Kedavra that forever changed you--a little piece of your soul somehow altered. She knew that with a deep, instinctive knowledge. Once you had taken a life, there was no turning back from it. That was maybe why she hadn't been able to shout the Killing Curse the night she had been captured. Perhaps if she looked closer, the shadow in his eyes matched that in a pair of eyes she knew equally well. And she found herself wondering if she could kill. Lives would depend upon it in the times to come.
Harry headed quickly on his way to get to the first class of the day: teaching DADA to the fourth years. It still seemed unbelievable that quiet, bookish Hermione was the one responsible for making the upper forms ready to fight. But then, he had barely looked back after he left Hogwarts, eager to escape the burden and expectation. She had changed drastically and he hadn't taken time to notice.
None of them could know what it was like to be expected to save an entire world from the time you were fourteen. Save the world, Harry, because it's your destiny. He still had nightmares about the night that Voldemort had returned, and nightmares where the shade of Cedric Diggory stood by silently, all the damnation needed to tear into him solely in his eyes.
It hadn't been his doing, anyhow, that he had survived the Dark Lord the first time. That had been his mother's accomplishment. Perhaps in some ways not much had changed between the Dursleys' house and Hogwarts. In both cases, he was separate, somehow alien. Naturally, Hogwarts was infinitely preferable. But there had been the suffocating sense of being an animal his last two years here. A caged animal, admired and cosseted, but held for the purposes of others. Like some fucking Gryffindor lion sent to fight the gladiator in the arena, he had thought angrily. They had never thought that maybe he couldn't do it, or that perhaps they should share in the fight and get it over with. It was always placing hopes squarely upon the shoulders of the Boy Who Lived.
So of course any Auror's academy would have died of pride to have him. So too, any wizarding university. The Ministry had been sending him job offers by the stack. But it was only in Quidditch that he had felt free by that time: the sensation of the wind rushing by him, cheers ringing in his ears, the simple honesty of competition and the team behind him. Catch the Snitch. Not save the world, vanquish the foe. Just catch a simple golden ball. So when Cardiff had offered him a contract, he eagerly went. Money, fame, pretty girls: all for such low expectations. Catch me, Harry, and I'll hand you the world. The Siren song of the Snitch, and he had been lured.
But there had been something missing, despite the thrill of victory. He didn't know what it was until he had heard of the massacre visited upon the Weasleys. Honor. Trite as it may have sounded; honor was paramount to a Gryffindor's soul. And he had tarnished his by abandoning his friends and those who did need him. Maybe he couldn't have saved the world single-handedly, but he should have at least taken part in the fight instead of leaving it to anyone and everyone.
And they had died because the wizarding world thought that without him, they couldn't win, and thus really didn't make effort. They were paralyzed, thinking that without him, they were nothing. He realized now with the wisdom of hindsight that they didn't expect him to literally go out by himself and kill Voldemort. Any one-on-one combat with the Dark Lord was extremely unlikely, especially in a pitched battle. They had needed him, aside from his now somewhat rusty fighting skills, as a rallying point.
The guilt of deaths caused because he had run and refused to accept his duty still lay heavy upon him. He felt, of all the things in the world, something of a kinship with Snape now: the older man's self-blame from being a Death Eater was probably never far from his mind.
Snape: he had always been good at seeing what others hadn't. Physical things like the Snitch, and then less tangible things. Since the day the two had gone missing and had been captured by Voldemort, there was something changed about them. A difference in the way they were around each other, a certain way of a smile, a look. He'd bet down to his last Galleon what it was.
The Potions Master had a good deal of guts to go spy on Voldemort as an Animagus, especially with a death warrant over his head. And that he was still finding a somewhat bitter pill: that a Death Eater, a man most had hated, had found the courage to do what had needed to be done, while he, Hogwart's golden boy, had failed. Still, he realized it as his own shortcoming. There was still something that irked him about Snape, though.
"Hey, 'Mione!" he said, catching her by the arm as she hurried off to class.
She smiled at him. "Harry." A slight dull ache at that: seven years she had been right under his nose, and he had never really seen her. Too consumed with anger and, well, yes, Quidditch too. That was his grief with Severus Snape: he had what Harry now realized he had wanted all along. He sighed, forcing himself to relax. It's her choice.
A thousand things he had to say but never could raced through his mind. He finally settled for a simple, "You're happy with him?"
She looked almost frightened for a second, but then she smiled and relaxed, light in her eyes. "Yes." The wary look. "Please, don't let it get out. You may remember the law about romance and war…" He did, and as much as he envied the lucky bastard, he wouldn't undercut him and hurt Hermione by turning them in. That was unspeakably dishonorable.
"Just don't," he said, trying to lighten her mood, "expect me to wear bridesmaid's robes."
Her eyes lit up and she laughed at that. "I think you'd look darling in lavender…" With that assurance that she was well and happy, he knew he could let her go. Though if Snape ever treated her badly, he promised himself that nice, mended nose would acquire its first break from his fist, hero of the resistance or not.
Students and teachers both quietly groaned to themselves. Little quarrels occurred as usual, and Poppy Pomfrey was kept quite busy tending to a variety of physical injuries and exhaustion.
William Monk and Hester Latterly, nerves very much on edge, broke off their engagement when she hit him with a Rigorifica Mortis due to bad timing during the "free-sparring" for Curse blocking in the courtyard: he had been turning to ask Hermione a question, while Hester had thought him ready. Needless to say, young Monk was not pleased with his fiancée's application of the Rigid Body Curse, especially when he couldn't protest until Hermione freed him. However, by lunch all was well and the two lovebirds were reconciled.
Harold Lowe and Herbert Lightoller had stopped hostilities enough to be seen practicing the Levitation Charm together with Joseph Boxhall and Thomas Andrews. It did come to a bit of a spat when Lowe accidentally levitated the entire contents of Lightoller's living space, including his spell books, cauldron, and a somewhat ratty teddy bear that had been hiding beneath the rumpled bedcovers. Lightoller naturally fervently disavowed owning the bear.
Ruadrik Desmond, a fifth-year Ravenclaw prefect, had quite a story to tell his friends when he saw Oliver Rathbone kissing Margaret Ballinger in one of the many alcoves and slipping a ring on her finger. Oliver caught up to him a half-hour later on his way to Potions and threatened him within an inch of his life if he told. Unfortunately, he had already told his girlfriend, Hufflepuff Ariel Remora, and she couldn't resist telling her friends. The story quickly found its way to Yaslani Almira, the biggest gossip in the fifth year, and the entire school was aware by dinner. Oliver gave Ruadrik glowers over the meal stating clearly that he was a marked man.
Minerva McGonagall finally got the courage to enter Dumbledore's office with Diaramuid and begin to clear it out. It was closure in a way, and she smiled even through the grief to see some of the mementos of the wise old wizard. She hoped that he'd think well upon how she had conducted affairs at Hogwarts thus far. Since she hadn't seen him since Dumbledore died, it was with surprise that she found Fawkes sitting listlessly on his perch, too thin and plumage faded to a dull ash-grey. The bird obviously hadn't hunted for himself in awhile, and it was with difficulty that she coaxed him to accept some roast beef from the kitchens. When she left the office for dinner, however, the phoenix was on her shoulder, the faintest glimmer of scarlet in his feathers.
Indeed, it was a day mostly like any other, as the students trudged out of the Great Hall and went to study or practice until curfew. Except that this was no ordinary day. The ancients had known about the magic of this day: Beltane.
A time of regeneration, rebirth, and the power of youth, the Muggles had celebrated it in a watered-down version as a fertility festival. But the ancients knew there was much more to this date than mating in the fields as a prayer for a good harvest.
It was a feast of power to the magicians so long dead that even had their names not been cursed to never be spoken, they would have been forgotten. In the darkness of night, there had been blood and fire, sacrifice and Dark rituals. Rituals declared so dark that any records of them had been destroyed so very long ago, and all magicians that had followed the Beltane rites had been executed. Those who the uncontrolled power hadn't killed outright.
But hidden records had remained, and so did the fact that the very Earth itself ran with raw power on this night, shaking off the sleepy cloak of winter and preparing to burst forth in its full glory for the summer. The power of Earth was neither good nor bad, producing both life and death: bounty and disaster. Indeed, the power itself was not what corrupted. It was the darkness, the sins committed to acquire it, the very greed and lust for more ability, that twisted the gift.
The power was there for the seizing, to be tapped in the Beltane rituals. For those who were not afraid to pay the price that might come after. The fire dancers of old, those hellishly Dark magicians whose bones had centuries ago turned to dust in the same soil they had defiled, had not been afraid.
Tom Marvolo Riddle was not afraid.