Chapter Eleven
The War of Sorceresses
"Of course!" Hermione gasped, taking the old yearbook from Harry and leafing through it, "Your parents went to school during the time of the Revival of the Sorceress Wars, you know . . . we don't hear much about it these days, I think most of it was pretty covered up, and, well, it's hard to find information on it."
"But you know about it?" Harry asked incredulously, "I'd never even heard of it!"
"Me neither!" Ron agreed.
"Well, yes, as I said people don't really like talking about it and even I don't know too much . . ." Hermione told them, biting her lower lip in contemplative thought for a moment. The three students crossed the Gryffindor common room, which was luckily abandoned and quiet, and dropped down into the comfortable fire-side arm-chairs. "Here's what I know: There was this really powerful Sorceress named Edea, around the time our parents went to school, well, she was defeated but then an even more powerful Sorceress named Adel took her place. There was a battle or something right here in Hogwarts-like I said it's nearly impossible to find the details- anyway, somehow she was pushed back as well and no one talks about it anymore. I heard that Adel used her powers to brainwash a group of Slythrins into trying to murder a girl, but I don't know for sure . . ."
"We have to do some research or something!" Ron piped up, watching Harry's concerned expression.
Hermione sighed, "I doubt we would find much mostly the books only have rumours, theories, nothing really concrete."
". . . We need to ask Professor Heartilly." Harry said finally.
"What? Harry-" Hermione began.
"I want to know about this!" Harry insisted, "It was something big! It happened to my parents. Heartilly was there, she's in the yearbook and it says right here that her and my parents were the ones who defeated Sorceress Adel!"
"What?" Hermione asked in disbelief.
"Right here!" Harry repeated, shoving the book under her nose.
"My goodness . . . Harry, I'll be honest with you I've read a bunch of books that mention this thing but none of them-none of them state who exactly defeated the sorceress or anything of the like! This must have come out before the big cover-up thing happened."
"Come on; tell me you don't want to find out more!" Harry pressed.
"Alright, alright I do!" Hermione admitted, "But still, bugging a teacher . . ."
"Heartilly won't mind." Ron said.
With that the group of Gryffindors made their way back through Hogwarts school halls until they came to Professor Heartilly's office. It was empty, so the three went in on their own. On the desk was a photograph of Professor Heartilly standing beside a man with shaggy brown hair who had a long diagonal scar across his face, he was wearing a leather jacket and black jeans, Harry and the others recognized him from the old yearbook. "That must be Squall Leonhart." Harry said.
"Of course it is! I learned all about him in Magic Schools in Modern Times by G. Scott Tranger." Hermione said proudly, "He founded the Balamb School for Aurors, you can go there after you graduate from Hogwarts if you want to study to become an auror."
"Yeah you said something like that on the first day of classes . . ." Ron said. "An auror, huh, man that's cool . . ."
Harry agreed, aurors were dark wizard catchers, and it had been the only job he'd ever really considered after Hogwarts. "He's in a lot of pictures with my dad and this other guy with long black hair . . ." Harry said, "I wonder if they were friends or something?"
"They were." A voice said behind them, the three jumped and turned to see Professor Heartilly standing in the doorway to her office, her hands on her hips and her head tilted a little to one side. "Good friends. But what are you three doing here?"
"Ah . . . we-we wanted to ask you something . . ." Harry began a little nervously.
"If it's a bad time-" Hermione added quickly.
Professor Heartilly sighed and shook her head, brushing a few strands of rich black hair from her face as she crossed the room and plopped into her chair at the desk. "No, never mind. Just got out of a meeting, Snape went on forever about why potions should get more funding. Bleh." She made a face, Hermione, Harry and Ron all relaxed a little, and sat down in the chairs in front of her desk. "Now what can I do for you guys?"
"Well . . . it's just . . ." Harry didn't quite know how to ask what he wanted.
"We want you to tell us about . . ." Hermione said for him, "The Sorceress Wars."
Rinoa's dark eyebrows shot up in surprise for a second, and she moved her gaze along the three students, before sighing again, and leaning back in her chair. ". . . You really want to know about all that?"
"My parents were here." Harry said firmly, "They went through it-I-I want to know what they did."
Rinoa studied his face for a moment, "Very well, I suppose you do have a right to know. Okay, a long time ago a very powerful, very evil sorceress named Adel was sealed away beneath Hogwarts by Dumbledore and my husband's grandfather, Laguna. When your parents and I were in our final year at Hogwarts, however, something started to go wrong with the seal, of course, none of knew that Adel was being imprisoned beneath the school-but weird things began happening. Since Adel still couldn't break out of her physical imprisonment she had to rely on her mental powers. She possessed the mind of a sorceress who was a nice lady, she ran an orphanage."
"Was that Edea?" Hermione asked. "I've never read that she was nice."
"Yeah," Rinoa nodded, "A lot of people feared and hated her, but she was really being possessed. Your parents, me and Squall, and some of our friends-we-we weren't much for following school rules, we always found trouble, or else, it found us." Harry and Ron exchanged smirks. "Anyway, it lead to a confrontation between all of us and Edea, we managed to force Adel's mind out of Edea's but Adel was still imprisoned under Hogwarts." Rinoa paused for breath, "She was still imprisoned under Hogwarts, and she used her powers to reach into the minds of some Slythrin seven years. Slythrin's minds were already corrupt and greedy, easy for her worm into, I guess. Anyway, three of them were possessed, and two just kind of tagged along-"
Harry thought of Draco and his two goons, Crabbe and Goyle.
"Anyway, they needed a sacrifice of a Sorceress to free the Sorceress. I had recently received Edea's sorceress power when we battled her."
"You can do that?" Ron asked.
"Of course!" Said Hermione, "To die in peace a Sorceress must pass on her powers, right?"
"Right." Rinoa nodded, "And even though we freed Edea from being possessed, she was so weak that she died and passed all of her powers to me."
"But she wasn't-it want . . ." Ron stuttered.
Rinoa nodded gravely, "I know, it was the stress of having had her mind possessed for so long, and then having that possessor ripped out suddenly, she couldn't take it, I'm afraid. Anyways, as I was saying the Slythrins needed a sacrifice and I was it. They kidnapped me and were going to execute me when Squall, James, Lily, Selphie . . . everyone came and saved me." She looked at them, "That's about it."
"But-but where in Hogwarts was this place?" Hermione asked, "You said she was sealed away under the school . . ."
Rinoa looked uncomfortable, "You know I really don't want to get into details . . ."
The three exchanged looks, their teacher was looking tired and they figured it was time to leave, they had learned a lot. Hermione and Ron left first, but Harry lingered back a little while, he wanted to ask one more thing.
"Professor Heartilly . . .?"
"Mm . . . yeah?"
". . . . If my dad had so many great friends and all . . . how come I ended up living with the Dursley's?" He asked.
". . . Don't you like your aunt and uncle?" Rinoa asked.
"NO!" Harry said, a little louder than he'd actually meant to.
Rinoa only looked mildly surprised, "Well Harry, don't think for a minute that there weren't a lot of people who were ready and willing to take care of you . . ."
In her head she thought: one's in Azkaban, one's disappeared, one's dead, one's . . .
"But things just . . . everything went to hell after You-Know-Who . . ." And Harry knew that she meant Voldemort's reign of terror, "Of course Squall and I volunteered, and Selphie and Irvine did too, but Dumbledore said it would be wiser for you to live with your mum's sister Petunia Dursley."
"What why?" Harry asked, but before Rinoa could respond the door to her office swung open and Professor Snape, Harry's most hated teacher, thundered in. He nearly tripped over Harry, and paused for a moment to stare at the boy before deciding to ignore him completely, and turned to Rinoa, glowering down at her darkly.
"Hey Sev, everything OK?" Professor Heartilly asked.
Snape glared down at her, "I will thank you not to call me 'Sev,'" Professor Snape said icily, "And no everything is not, as you would callously put it 'OK.'"
Harry took this as his cue to exit, even though he was curious to hear more, Professor Heartilly cast him a glance that told him to leave.
He slipped out of her office, closing the door softly behind him, and then pressed his ear against the old door to listen.
Snape's voice was raspy and heated with anger. "We need to talk!"
"About what?" Rinoa replied carelessly.
"HEY!" A voice interrupted Harry's concentration and he back away from the door, looking slightly embarrassed. The Nafia and Nadia twin girls were standing there cheerily.
"Uh . . . hi." He replied. Than thought of something, "Hey wait, your parents are Selphie and Irvine Kinneas, right?" He asked, remembering the Yearbook, all of these people suddenly seemed very much like old friends.
"That's right." The girls nodded.
"So you must know Professor Heartilly, then right?" Harry asked.
"Rinoa? Yeah sure, we've known her ever since we were born." Nafia told him.
"We live in Balamb with Rinoa and Squall anyway," Nadia added, "But there's no witchcraft schools there 'cept for Squall's Auror school and we're too young for that, you need your NEWTs first."
Of course, the NEWTs, or Needlessly Exhausting Wizard Tests, which were taken by all students in their seventh and final year at Hogwarts.
"I wonder if I'll get to meet Squall sometime?" Harry asked off- handedly. He had to admit, Rinoa's husband had his interest, not only was he an old friend of Harry's father, but he was an auror which also got Harry's immediate respect.
"Probably, we think he'll be coming to visit Hogwarts for the Quidditch games." Nafia told him, smiling excitedly and bouncing back on the balls of her feet, "He used to play for the Gryffindor team, with our parents, and oh, your dad, too, Harry."
Harry's eyes widened further, by the time he returned to the Gryffindor Common Room he was so interested in meeting his parent's old friends that he forgot all about the mysterious conference between Snape and Rinoa.
"Of course!" Hermione gasped, taking the old yearbook from Harry and leafing through it, "Your parents went to school during the time of the Revival of the Sorceress Wars, you know . . . we don't hear much about it these days, I think most of it was pretty covered up, and, well, it's hard to find information on it."
"But you know about it?" Harry asked incredulously, "I'd never even heard of it!"
"Me neither!" Ron agreed.
"Well, yes, as I said people don't really like talking about it and even I don't know too much . . ." Hermione told them, biting her lower lip in contemplative thought for a moment. The three students crossed the Gryffindor common room, which was luckily abandoned and quiet, and dropped down into the comfortable fire-side arm-chairs. "Here's what I know: There was this really powerful Sorceress named Edea, around the time our parents went to school, well, she was defeated but then an even more powerful Sorceress named Adel took her place. There was a battle or something right here in Hogwarts-like I said it's nearly impossible to find the details- anyway, somehow she was pushed back as well and no one talks about it anymore. I heard that Adel used her powers to brainwash a group of Slythrins into trying to murder a girl, but I don't know for sure . . ."
"We have to do some research or something!" Ron piped up, watching Harry's concerned expression.
Hermione sighed, "I doubt we would find much mostly the books only have rumours, theories, nothing really concrete."
". . . We need to ask Professor Heartilly." Harry said finally.
"What? Harry-" Hermione began.
"I want to know about this!" Harry insisted, "It was something big! It happened to my parents. Heartilly was there, she's in the yearbook and it says right here that her and my parents were the ones who defeated Sorceress Adel!"
"What?" Hermione asked in disbelief.
"Right here!" Harry repeated, shoving the book under her nose.
"My goodness . . . Harry, I'll be honest with you I've read a bunch of books that mention this thing but none of them-none of them state who exactly defeated the sorceress or anything of the like! This must have come out before the big cover-up thing happened."
"Come on; tell me you don't want to find out more!" Harry pressed.
"Alright, alright I do!" Hermione admitted, "But still, bugging a teacher . . ."
"Heartilly won't mind." Ron said.
With that the group of Gryffindors made their way back through Hogwarts school halls until they came to Professor Heartilly's office. It was empty, so the three went in on their own. On the desk was a photograph of Professor Heartilly standing beside a man with shaggy brown hair who had a long diagonal scar across his face, he was wearing a leather jacket and black jeans, Harry and the others recognized him from the old yearbook. "That must be Squall Leonhart." Harry said.
"Of course it is! I learned all about him in Magic Schools in Modern Times by G. Scott Tranger." Hermione said proudly, "He founded the Balamb School for Aurors, you can go there after you graduate from Hogwarts if you want to study to become an auror."
"Yeah you said something like that on the first day of classes . . ." Ron said. "An auror, huh, man that's cool . . ."
Harry agreed, aurors were dark wizard catchers, and it had been the only job he'd ever really considered after Hogwarts. "He's in a lot of pictures with my dad and this other guy with long black hair . . ." Harry said, "I wonder if they were friends or something?"
"They were." A voice said behind them, the three jumped and turned to see Professor Heartilly standing in the doorway to her office, her hands on her hips and her head tilted a little to one side. "Good friends. But what are you three doing here?"
"Ah . . . we-we wanted to ask you something . . ." Harry began a little nervously.
"If it's a bad time-" Hermione added quickly.
Professor Heartilly sighed and shook her head, brushing a few strands of rich black hair from her face as she crossed the room and plopped into her chair at the desk. "No, never mind. Just got out of a meeting, Snape went on forever about why potions should get more funding. Bleh." She made a face, Hermione, Harry and Ron all relaxed a little, and sat down in the chairs in front of her desk. "Now what can I do for you guys?"
"Well . . . it's just . . ." Harry didn't quite know how to ask what he wanted.
"We want you to tell us about . . ." Hermione said for him, "The Sorceress Wars."
Rinoa's dark eyebrows shot up in surprise for a second, and she moved her gaze along the three students, before sighing again, and leaning back in her chair. ". . . You really want to know about all that?"
"My parents were here." Harry said firmly, "They went through it-I-I want to know what they did."
Rinoa studied his face for a moment, "Very well, I suppose you do have a right to know. Okay, a long time ago a very powerful, very evil sorceress named Adel was sealed away beneath Hogwarts by Dumbledore and my husband's grandfather, Laguna. When your parents and I were in our final year at Hogwarts, however, something started to go wrong with the seal, of course, none of knew that Adel was being imprisoned beneath the school-but weird things began happening. Since Adel still couldn't break out of her physical imprisonment she had to rely on her mental powers. She possessed the mind of a sorceress who was a nice lady, she ran an orphanage."
"Was that Edea?" Hermione asked. "I've never read that she was nice."
"Yeah," Rinoa nodded, "A lot of people feared and hated her, but she was really being possessed. Your parents, me and Squall, and some of our friends-we-we weren't much for following school rules, we always found trouble, or else, it found us." Harry and Ron exchanged smirks. "Anyway, it lead to a confrontation between all of us and Edea, we managed to force Adel's mind out of Edea's but Adel was still imprisoned under Hogwarts." Rinoa paused for breath, "She was still imprisoned under Hogwarts, and she used her powers to reach into the minds of some Slythrin seven years. Slythrin's minds were already corrupt and greedy, easy for her worm into, I guess. Anyway, three of them were possessed, and two just kind of tagged along-"
Harry thought of Draco and his two goons, Crabbe and Goyle.
"Anyway, they needed a sacrifice of a Sorceress to free the Sorceress. I had recently received Edea's sorceress power when we battled her."
"You can do that?" Ron asked.
"Of course!" Said Hermione, "To die in peace a Sorceress must pass on her powers, right?"
"Right." Rinoa nodded, "And even though we freed Edea from being possessed, she was so weak that she died and passed all of her powers to me."
"But she wasn't-it want . . ." Ron stuttered.
Rinoa nodded gravely, "I know, it was the stress of having had her mind possessed for so long, and then having that possessor ripped out suddenly, she couldn't take it, I'm afraid. Anyways, as I was saying the Slythrins needed a sacrifice and I was it. They kidnapped me and were going to execute me when Squall, James, Lily, Selphie . . . everyone came and saved me." She looked at them, "That's about it."
"But-but where in Hogwarts was this place?" Hermione asked, "You said she was sealed away under the school . . ."
Rinoa looked uncomfortable, "You know I really don't want to get into details . . ."
The three exchanged looks, their teacher was looking tired and they figured it was time to leave, they had learned a lot. Hermione and Ron left first, but Harry lingered back a little while, he wanted to ask one more thing.
"Professor Heartilly . . .?"
"Mm . . . yeah?"
". . . . If my dad had so many great friends and all . . . how come I ended up living with the Dursley's?" He asked.
". . . Don't you like your aunt and uncle?" Rinoa asked.
"NO!" Harry said, a little louder than he'd actually meant to.
Rinoa only looked mildly surprised, "Well Harry, don't think for a minute that there weren't a lot of people who were ready and willing to take care of you . . ."
In her head she thought: one's in Azkaban, one's disappeared, one's dead, one's . . .
"But things just . . . everything went to hell after You-Know-Who . . ." And Harry knew that she meant Voldemort's reign of terror, "Of course Squall and I volunteered, and Selphie and Irvine did too, but Dumbledore said it would be wiser for you to live with your mum's sister Petunia Dursley."
"What why?" Harry asked, but before Rinoa could respond the door to her office swung open and Professor Snape, Harry's most hated teacher, thundered in. He nearly tripped over Harry, and paused for a moment to stare at the boy before deciding to ignore him completely, and turned to Rinoa, glowering down at her darkly.
"Hey Sev, everything OK?" Professor Heartilly asked.
Snape glared down at her, "I will thank you not to call me 'Sev,'" Professor Snape said icily, "And no everything is not, as you would callously put it 'OK.'"
Harry took this as his cue to exit, even though he was curious to hear more, Professor Heartilly cast him a glance that told him to leave.
He slipped out of her office, closing the door softly behind him, and then pressed his ear against the old door to listen.
Snape's voice was raspy and heated with anger. "We need to talk!"
"About what?" Rinoa replied carelessly.
"HEY!" A voice interrupted Harry's concentration and he back away from the door, looking slightly embarrassed. The Nafia and Nadia twin girls were standing there cheerily.
"Uh . . . hi." He replied. Than thought of something, "Hey wait, your parents are Selphie and Irvine Kinneas, right?" He asked, remembering the Yearbook, all of these people suddenly seemed very much like old friends.
"That's right." The girls nodded.
"So you must know Professor Heartilly, then right?" Harry asked.
"Rinoa? Yeah sure, we've known her ever since we were born." Nafia told him.
"We live in Balamb with Rinoa and Squall anyway," Nadia added, "But there's no witchcraft schools there 'cept for Squall's Auror school and we're too young for that, you need your NEWTs first."
Of course, the NEWTs, or Needlessly Exhausting Wizard Tests, which were taken by all students in their seventh and final year at Hogwarts.
"I wonder if I'll get to meet Squall sometime?" Harry asked off- handedly. He had to admit, Rinoa's husband had his interest, not only was he an old friend of Harry's father, but he was an auror which also got Harry's immediate respect.
"Probably, we think he'll be coming to visit Hogwarts for the Quidditch games." Nafia told him, smiling excitedly and bouncing back on the balls of her feet, "He used to play for the Gryffindor team, with our parents, and oh, your dad, too, Harry."
Harry's eyes widened further, by the time he returned to the Gryffindor Common Room he was so interested in meeting his parent's old friends that he forgot all about the mysterious conference between Snape and Rinoa.