Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. Nope, not me.
A/N: This is the Thursday chapter.
The poem in this is, I admit, inspired by the famous Song of Amergin - which everyone should read, whether or not they are familiar with the myth of Erin and Amergin or not. However, it is my own work.
This chapter: Something life-altering happens to Severus… and the question is this: will he regret his actions forever?
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The music of the silver flute was the most eerie, eldritch thing Severus had ever heard in his life. Setting the cauldron down in the middle of the courtyard, he stood for a moment and just listened.
He realised, after a moment, that there were three flutes playing, not just one. Together, they created a beautiful harmony, intricate as the crescent moon was bright where it hung, smiling down on the glade.
Helena laid her hand on his arm. "Do not be afraid," she told him.
It was very different out here than it had been in the temple. The glade he had spent the night in only a day or so ago seemed luminously alive. Something powerful was afoot, and he could sense it.
"Should I take the cover off the cauldron yet?" he asked Helena gruffly.
"I think you might," Helena replied, taking her wand from her sleeve. "Incendio!"
An enormous faggot of wood in the middle of the glade caught fire and began to crackle merrily. It lit up all the corners of the glade, driving back the shadows, mixing with moonlight, silver light and gold.
"What is this celebration?" he asked.
"It is Midsummer Eve," Helena replied. "The most magical night of the year."
Severus took the cover off the cauldron, and the mist, still rising from it, mixed with the firelight and moonlight, creating a spiral staircase to heaven. He heard Helena draw in a breath beside him. "Beautiful," she murmured.
He cast her a quizzical look. "Surely you have seen it before?"
"Not like that," she replied, eyes wide with amazement. "You truly are a great potion-master, Severus."
From the direction of the temple Severus heard three successive chimes, as if someone had rung a gong. "Is it -"
"It is time," Helena cut him off.
Priestesses began to enter the glade, but they were not subdued as they had been when Severus had seen them in the temple. Not clad in grey were they, not brown and black, but white, all of them, as if they were all the High Priestess. And they were laughing, laughing as if it were the merriest night they had lived.
Severus looked at Helena at his side, still dressed in black. She smiled at him. "I will return soon," she whispered, and Disapparated.
He noticed that many of the priestesses were looking at him, the lone male in the glade, clad in sombre black once more, the epitome of solemnity and gravity, standing alone by a cauldron that spiralled smoke into the heavens. They were laughing still, but it was not the laughter he received from some of the students back at Hogwarts. "Look at his hair!" some of the Hogwarts girls would squeal, and "greasy git," the boys, and he had to try hard not to let it get to him. He was not a teacher to be liked. He was a teacher to teach.
But tonight he was not a teacher, and he was very conscious of that. And tonight he was not the greasy git, and of that he was equally conscious. The purification in the sanctum had left him dripping wet and unsoiled, his sallow skin no longer a sickly yellow but a soft gold, his hair no longer lank but clean.
Tonight he was not a teacher. Tonight he was a man.
*
An inestimable silence fell over the glade like a white wave sweeping to the shore.
"My sisters, tonight we drink of the stars!"
Diana's voice, Diana the high priestess. In the silver and gold light, her moon-pale hair shone, iridescent, refracting rainbows in a myriad of spectra. She is beautiful, Severus thought, and he - who never called anything beautiful if he could help it - meant it.
"Tonight," Diana went on, "is Midsummer Eve, holy Litha, when the weft of the tapestry becomes visible to those who would see it."
One to spin, one to weave, one to cut.
Three times is magic.
"And tonight is the night when the new high priestess of the Arachniae shall be chosen!"
A new high priestess? Severus thought, slightly startled. No-one told me anything of that…
"I have served the Lady as her high priestess now for ten years," Diana continued. "It is time now for someone new to lead us."
It is cowardice! Severus thought suddenly. She does not want to be held responsible if the Dark Lord should swoop down on the Arachniae! The wheels in his mind began to turn over. Of course… if the Dark Lord were to confront the Arachniae, the one he would torture for information would be the High Priestess - as an example if not anything else. Diana is a coward. He looked around guiltily, afraid that one of the priestesses would have picked up on his thoughts, but the only one looking at him was Helena, and she was smiling.
"Drink, then, of the stars, my sisters," Diana exclaimed, smiling, "and the goddess will make her choice known!"
Severus began doling out the potion in silver goblets as the priestesses came to collect it. He noticed that even now, in what seemed to be a time of dissolution of rank in the Arachniae, the higher priestesses took precedence over the lower. He wondered if it were lore or just a subconscious decision. Diana had drunk first.
Helena, however, was last in line. She drank deep of the potion when Severus handed her a goblet. "Beautiful," she breathed.
Severus smiled. "A potion brewer likes to know his work is appreciated."
"Will you drink yourself?"
The question seemed to come out of left wing. "I didn't think I was supposed to."
Helena smiled. "It is entirely a matter of choice, Severus."
Severus gazed at the cauldron. It was still half full, gold and silver tendrils spiralling to the sky. And, on looking on the beauty that he had created, dour, sour, controlled Severus Snape decided to take a chance.
"All right," he answered, and drank.
*
It was like nothing else he had ever experienced. Severus, being a potions master, had tried many a potion in his day - after he had researched all the side effects, of course. Severus Snape was the epitome of caution and control. But this… this was abandon.
The world was more vividly coloured, the light brighter, the sounds clearer, the smells more poignant. It is more real than the real thing, he thought.
From what he had heard of the Arachniae and their narcotics, most of them produced an altered state of consciousness. But this was not altered… it was… clearer, and he felt more lucid than he had ever felt. I feel, he thought, like a god…
He felt Helena's hand in his. "Come," he heard her say, and he followed her.
The world seemed to shimmer before his eyes, and he saw the tapestry, the tapestry designed by Arachne and created by the Moerae. Before his eyes, he saw it being woven. His thread was a deep, rich green. It was intertwined with a golden thread. Regina's thread. Her thread also bound the crimson thread of Sirius Black, the sapphire thread of Remus Lupin. Helena's thread was silver and looped around his, around the white thread of Diana's, crossing with Regina early on.
All threads are intertwined, Severus realised, and so are all lives. And life goes on, even after death. That is the greatest magic.
There was a ripple of sound around him. "Choose…" the priestesses were chanting. "Choose… choose… choose… choose…"
And Diana began to speak.
"I am the weft of the Goddess Arachne
"I am the people of Telae Domus
"I am a spear that pierces truth not blood
"I am a cauldron of mirth and plenty
"I am a sword wielded in peace
"I am a stone that sings of destiny
"I am the people of the dance
"Who but I sets the cool head aflame with fire?
"Who but I looks from the great dolmen arch?
"I am Diana, High Priestess of the Arachniae
"I am Telae Domus, temple of destiny
"Come forth, Priestess of the Third Circle
"You who do claim the right of sovereignty
"Be swift and be cunning
"And together we shall sing the final incantation!"
There was a sea of murmuring around Severus. "Who shall speak… who shall the goddess choose… who shall be the new High Priestess?"
And when she spoke, it was achingly, breakingly right.
"Come them, and meet me
"In the Land Upon the Waves
"And we shall harvest the apples
"That are under the sea
"I am Telae Domus of the blood, dark battle host
"I am the people of free companions
"I am the torc of gold, brighter than the sun
"I am the hero's light, the flame of courage on the brow
"I am fír flámethon, lady's truth
"Through me
"Darkness yields to light
"Sorrow to joy
"I am a breaker threatening doom
"The boar-champion, ruthless and red
"I am the tomb of your hope
"I am the daughter of Arachne, lady of weavers
"I am Helena, High Priestess!"
A dark dawning, then, for the Arachniae, Severus thought dazedly, before the new High Priestess took his hand and dragged him away, deep into the woods.
In the morning, satiated, he slept at last.
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