Kiora reeled as he stumbled through the doorway to his room and closed it firmly behind him. He slid down it, unable to make it to a chair. How had he forgotten so much? How had they both forgotten so much? And foremost, who? Who would have been able to find the monolith and move it here?
I'm really hoping you have some ideas about, since I'm out.
Afraid not Ki. Seeing as I chose to forget also.
I've been hiding…from myself. I'm not even sure if I'm the same person with the addition of those memories. And such power……
That wasn't just ours. The People gave us all they had. We were their only chance.
How will I get the thing? I can't let anyone see!
"Harry? Hullo?" Ron was passing his hand in front of his friend's eyes.
"Did you…see something?" Hermione pressed, concerned. Harry blinked, and turned to his friends. There were no other students in the hall, they had all left in the quarter hour or so that Harry had lingered on the memory of those wings. Harry contemplated whether he should tell them of his vision, but decided that that experience would be his and his alone.
"Err..no." Ron and Hermione glanced at each other, and then accusingly at Harry.
"Oh come on! You must have been looking at something!" Ron burst out. Harry said nothing, returning to the consumption of his breakfast rolls. His friends gave him dirty looks and gave up.
The happy little trio whiled away the rest of the day doing basically whatever pleased them. Ron played chess, Hermione buried herself in the library, still looking for more clues as to Professor Sinavre's identity (or species) and Harry polished his broom, played chess with Ron and read fiction novels. Every so often a smile would creep across Harry's face as he envisioned the gossamer wings again. It seemed that the image in his mind retained a constantly startling clarity.
When Harry saw Sinavre at dinner that day, the golden dust was still present, and seemed to thinly coat the teacher's skin, or at least parts of it. Harry wondered if he would have been able to see any detail if he was closer but didn't try. Harry was of course, curious as to by what faculty he could sense the dust, light, whatever it was. It only seemed to appear on Sinavre, which confirmed to Harry his own suspicions that the professor was decidedly different, i.e. most likely not human. On the other hand, he found it difficult to believe that something so beautiful as those wings could possibly be evil.
When he returned to the Gryffindor, Harry settled next to the fire for a little reading before he took himself to bed. Harry had made considerable headway into his book when he felt a magical "ripple" of considerable size. He barely even thought as he got up to have a look; his curiosity was so strong it was automatic at this point. His feet brought him ever closer to the great hall, and the ripples became more structured, smaller, until they disappeared.
As he rounded the final corner, he saw a cascade of brilliantly white hair that could only have been Sinavre's. That was no surprise though. Harry craned his neck to the side to try and see more, and recoiled in shock. A hand did indeed rest upon the monolith, but it was not what Harry would have expected. It was mostly human, except that it was graced with half inch claws and golden scales on the back of the hand and fingers. Harry looked more carefully, and realized that they were more like plates than scales. They didn't quite overlap, and were larger than Harry would imagine scales on a person. He also noticed part of a tail protruding from beneath Sinavre's cloak. Apparently the mage was either unaware of Harry or ignoring him, and Harry was not about to leave.
Sinavre began to speak softly in whatever language he used with his pet, something like parseltongue, but softer and more refined…more….civilized. Soothing, actually, when spoken in that tone. Harry nearly lost himself in the musical cadence of the language, and then noticed that parts of the monolith had started to glow. The looked like characters of some sort. The intensity of the light they were emitting grew to an unbearably bright white. He shielded his eyes. When he looked again, the monolith was gone…or mostly gone. The base seemed to remain, and simplistically beautiful staff was upright in the space that had probably been inside the hollow stone. It seemed to pulsate with light, also white, but Harry saw the faintest hint of smoldering red crawling across the surface of the staff. It was disconcertingly familiar.
Harry watched Sinavre grasp the staff in his left hand, and freeze. The professors now pointed ears twitched, moving slightly, as though searching for a sound. Harry held his breath, fearing that it would betray his presence if he did not. It was then that the all too familiar chuckle emerged from the shadows. Now Harry too, was frozen, but from fear. Muscles rippled beneath Sinavre's now-scaled skin, as though he wished to move but could not. The voice laughed. Harry saw that the crawling redness now covered Sinavre in a thin layer. A figure walked from the shadows, and roughly spun Sinavre around to face it. Harry could see past the figure's shoulder, barely, to Sinavre's face. They locked eyes for a brief moment, and Harry was quite sure that Sinavre knew he was there. Fortunately, the other was still unaware of the third party.
"What's this, the mighty Kio'Ra caught off guard?" The figure taunted. A gloved hand caressed Sinavre's face, and Harry could see the disgust, and fury in his teacher's eyes. "You will make an excellent tool." It seemed to Harry as if Sinavre's eyes burned brighter still, as though they were emitting light, instead of just reflecting what little there was. On of the mage's fingers twitched, then curled, slowly. Harry watched as the rest of the fingers on the right hand followed suit, one at a time. The figure turned around, back to Sinavre and glared in Harry's general direction. Crimson eyes stabbed through the darkness, searching for him. Harry willed himself to action and ducked behind a pillar.
He waited tensely, but nothing happened. Harry peeked back out, and found that the Dark Lord's attention was now directed at all the walls near him, but he was still back to Sinavre. The professor raised his arm, very slowly, and with great effort, muscles trembling with strain, until his right hand faced Voldemort's back, palm open. The metal of the hand-piece glinted. Space rippled in an abrupt circular pattern emanating outwards from Sinavre's hand, and the Dark Lord was sent sprawling. Sinavre brought his right hand to the staff, the stone on it and his circlet now glowing fiercely white, the staff responding with angry red. Sinavre stepped forwards, very slowly.
"STOP!" The command rang forth from the Dark Lord, now standing and facing Sinavre. Kiora's face became more determined as he stepped forwards again. "I command you to stop!" Sinavre still continued slowly forwards. "By the geas that I have bound you to, STOP." Sinavre's foot touched the ground, and he did not lift it again, but instead he spoke, but not in English. The professor spoke again in whatever language it was he used with his pet, and by some means, Harry understood it perfectly, perhaps because of the presence of Voldemort.
"Forged in my blood," Sinavre stepped forwards, and the Dark Lord shouted again for him to stop, "Shaped by my will," the room began to shake a little, and Harry though he saw a vortex of light forming about Sinavre, though it was faint. "Imbued with my essence," the room was now shaking a considerable amount, and the vortex of white light was easily visible, even to Voldemort, who now wore a look of surprise, and maybe, fright. "I cannot be bound," Sinavre's voice grew stronger, and the white light was burning away the sullen red. The vortex of light was now hard to look at. "By a part of myself." The stopped shaking, the red glow was gone, and Sinavre now strode purposefully and easily towards the Dark Lord, the trio of stones he glowing brightly. It was the only time Harry had seen Voldemort, completely, and utterly afraid. His plan, whatever it was, must have just been completely crushed.
The Dark Lord held his wand at the ready, and began throwing cursed the likes of which Harry hadn't known existed at Sinavre, who spoke calm counters to every one. The professor brought the staff down with a thundering boom, sending Voldemort's wand skittering away. Sinavre grasped the Dark Lord's throat with his right hand, being none too gentle. Beads of blood sprang up where the tips of Sinavre's talons pressed into flesh. The wizard muttered something and Sinavre dropped him and sprang back, as though burned. Sinavre hissed. It sounded to Harry not unlike the basilisk, only a lot smaller. Voldemort made a dash for his wand. Sinavre arrived within striking distance just as the Dark Lord knelt to retrieve his wand, and the huge blow of Sinavre's staff was delivered to his midriff and sent him flying through a window. Sinavre leaned over the sill, and cursed. The professor turned back to the room, and closed his eyes. The remains of the monolith burned in white pyre of raw magical power that left Harry awe-struck. With a flick of Sinavre's wrist the window reassembled itself. The professor then, in an action Harry had been long expecting, turned his piercing gaze on Harry.
And that concludes this nifty chapter!