Author's Note: Hello once more. Yes, I know it's been longer since my last
but the dreaded school started last Monday and it's absolutely awful. I
just spent the past hour writing an essay on character traits I share with
a seal. Anyway.chapter ten is a bit different than the other chapters. It's
a lot darker. But on the bright side, we hear the Legend of the Lumberjack.
So cheer up, me hearties!
Disclaimer: Harry Potter etc. belongs to Rowling.the definitions about Diana are from Mythology.
Trudging through the hallways, Hermione tuned out the voices of the Weasleys and Harry as she pondered on a gift for Diana. The evening had been a blessing, besides that one little incident where Hermione had to put her tongue into Ron's mouth. That was something I could have lived without, she thought to herself.
Entering Ginny's room, Hermione opened up her trunk and pulled out a copy of Ancient Mythology. Even before her role as Diana's representative, Hermione had been fascinated with the Greek and Roman gods and goddesses.
She thumbed through the book, searching for a passage about a proper sacrifice for Diana, or Artemis (Diana's Greek name). "The cypress tree is sacred to her, and all wild animals; especially the deer." Hermione turned and looked pensively out the darkened window, into the moonless sky.
"Tonight is a perfect time for a sacrifice," she realized. "Moonless sky, under a cypress tree.I'm sure there is a deer running about somewhere." She chuckled. "Tonight, You take all three forms, Goddess," she cried softly with her head out of the window. "Goddess of the sky, goddess of the earth, Goddess of the black night where the moon is hidden, the world above that is wrapped in darkness."
She closed her eyes and listened intently to Harry's laughter floating upwards. Hermione grit her teeth. "Tonight, my Goddess of Crossroads," she whispered. "Tonight we'll meet."
Hermione hurriedly placed some items for her ritual in a black canvas bag and hid it near the window. Sighing contently, she hopped into her bed and settled down for a short nap.
While in the kitchen.
"Want some ice cream, Ginny?" offered Harry as he sat on top of the Weasley's kitchen table, eating out of an ice cream carton. Ginny regarded him for a moment.
"Harry, we're supposed to be cleaning," she chided. "Not sitting on furniture and eating."
Harry shrugged and took another bite of his Brownie-Chocolate Chip ice cream. "It looks to me like you're the only one cleaning."
He was right. Fred and George did a brief mopping spell on the floor to wipe up mud and then, bored with cleaning had begun a game of Exploding Snap.
"What's so intriguing about Exploding Snap?" snapped Ginny, dusting a counter. "It seems that whenever someone gets bored, they just start to play Exploding Snap. The common room, Hogwarts express." she trailed off.
"Gin, what's wrong?" asked Harry, stuffing his mouth of the dessert.
"Hogwarts!" she gasped. "I haven't done my Potions essay! It's supposed to be three feet long! And in History of Magic I have to write a report on the founding of Diagon Alley! And.I have tons of homework and we're leaving for school in.28 hours!" She screamed and ran out of the room.
Harry shrugged. "Ask Hermione to help you," he called after he. He turned to Ron, who was pretending to vacuum.
"How does this thing even work?" asked Ron in disgust. "I don't understand." He shook his head. "Dad brought it back from one of his raids, telling Mum it would make cleaning easier." He waved the chord. "What do I do with this?"
Harry shrugged. "Aunt Petunia used to vacuum. I just mowed the lawn."
"Ron likes to de-gnome the lawn and work with the trees." snickered Fred, looking up from his game.
"It's alright, we all know about Ron and his .tree fetish." added George.
"Yeah," commented Harry. "I happen to know the real reason Ron calls it the "Whomping Willow."
George looked at his twin and both of them grew somber for a moment. "Seriously Ron," said George cautiously. "You shouldn't do things like that to the Whomping Willow."
"For God's sake, I don't do things to the Whomping Willow," snapped Ron, getting strongly irked by the teasing.
"That's good," praised Fred. "Cause you know what would happen if you did."
"What?" questioned Harry. "He'd get splinters?" He laughed at his clever joke.
Fred shook his head. "No, man. Don't you know about the lumberjack?" He raised an eyebrow and looked at his nervous brother.
"The what-er-jack?" he asked in confusion.
"Lumber-jack," pronounced George. His voice grew mysterious. "You've seriously never heard of him?"
"No, never."
Harry shook his head. "I've never heard of him either.
Fred turned to his twin. "Shall I elucidate them?" he asked.
George nodded. "By all means, dear brother."
"Well, the story goes that far on the western edge of the Forbidden Forest, a lumberjack lives. When he went to school, he was like Snape and all those other losers-always trying to past the Whomping Willow." He shook his head. "Pranksters with no talent, no plans.horrible."
"They used to play a game, trying to get near enough to touch the trunk-"
"I'm starting to remember," recalled Harry. "A boy lost an eye."
"Yes! Ten points to Gryffindor, Harry," said Fred, mimicking Professor McGonagall. "He left the school shortly after, reportedly going to St. Mungo's."
"He claimed that the Whomping Willow used mind tricks to lure him closer to the trunk."
"He left St. Mungo's after three years, vowing that the Whomping Willow will never have another victim as he was. They say he approached Dumbledore and is the Whomping Willow's watcher. He watches the tree at all times, preparing and plotting a time when he can fully reveal it's use of the Impervious curse."
"Course, he is mad," amended Fred, reading Harry and Ron's bewildered expressions.
"But where was he when we were in third year?" asked Harry. "When Sirius-" He felt a slight tremor in his voice, saying the name, "was living in the Shrieking Shack, and Crookshanks was going in there."
"In case you don't remember, the tree broke my leg," pondered Ron. "Why didn't this lumberjack save me?"
Fred shrugged. "How should I know?" He glanced at the clock. "I'm going to bed now. See ya in the morning." His twin followed him out, leaving Harry and Ron to mull over what they just heard.
"Do you believe it?" asked Ron, staring at Harry's pensive expression.
"I don't know," said Harry slowly. "It seems plausible.. after all, there was so much going on that day, and between the hippogriff and the tree and Dumbledore maybe he had told Dumbledore what happened?"
"I don't know," admitted Ron. "But the twins had a good idea. I'm going to sleep also."
"Yeah, good idea." Harry and Ron began walking up the stairs, not noticing Hermione's figuring catapulting off the roof.
"Oof," mumbled Hermione as she landed on the hard ground. "Now why didn't I just apparate?" She brushed herself off and picked up her bag, making sure all her materials were intact. She smiled and set off to find the cypress tree. She grabbed her wand. "Lumos," she whispered. The wand showed a beacon of light streaming in her path. Hermione turned her head towards the stars.
The first thing she saw in the clear night was Mars. Mars is bright tonight.Harry had told her the story of the centaur and the unicorn in first year. But instead of thinking about Voldemort, she found herself quoting a Muggle movie.
"Nothing ever happens on Mars, no entertainment, no swinging bars." She walked a little faster, searching for the tree. "You stand around, you stand some more.on a planet named for the Roman God of war. "
"Aha!" The cypress tree lay a bit to the east. She was far away enough from the house that the bonfire would be mostly blocked from view. Unfortunately, the unusually bright night would make the smoke easier to see. "I should have put a sleeping charm on Ginny and the boys," mumbled Hermione, setting up her ritual. "Oh well."
She also should have remembered to close the window. On the third story of the Weasley house, Ginny had awoken to the garbled noise of Hermione landing with a thump. "Hermione?" she called weakly. Sitting up, she realized her window was opened and her curtain was eerily blowing about like a ghost. Ginny rubbed her eyes and picked her head up off of her Potions textbook. She had been furiously scribbling her essay before she had fallen asleep.
Rising to shut the window, she tripped over Hermione's cot. "Sorry," she whispered. She waited for a response. There was no noise. "Hermione?" she asked a little louder . She suddenly noticed how quite it was. There was no breathing except her own. "Hermione?" she called, not caring whom she woke. She glanced at the open window, fearing the worst.
Throwing on a t-shirt, Ginny hopped onto the roof and surveyed the Weasley property, looking for Hermione. "Damn her," she cursed, lowering her self onto the icy rain gutter, preparing to slide down the side of the house. "I'm going to kill her once I save her," she remarked weakly, flying down the side of the house.
"Here, deery deery deery," sang Hermione. She had lit a small bonfire and was waiting for the last part of her mission-the innocent. She sat in the clearing, clutching a small vial in her right hand. Her left hand was also clenched on an object. As Hermione sat looking for the deer, she realized that the sun would be rising soon.
"I'd better start the spell," she thought. Pouring a mixture onto the ground, she traced it into a symbol and dropped a quartz stone onto the fire. The crystal glowed as the flames engulfed it.
"The goddess does command me for thy majesty," she began chanting, gazing intently at the bush as a rustling sound was heard. "Come forward, blessed one," she urged. "Know your calling."
A young fawn emerged out of the bush, slowly approaching Hermione. She smiled tenderly, marveling at the beauty of the young doe. The deer, captivated by the spell lowered its head submissively as Hermione gently stroked its head.
"It'll all be over in a minute," Hermione reassured the deer, trying to convince both herself and the animal. "It's okay." She raised the knife in her left hand and prepared to strike.
Ginny had been wandering about the property for fifteen minutes, growing increasingly more worried. As each moment passed by, she began to imagine Hermione's fate, growing progressively worse. Abducted by Death Eaters, kidnapped by Unspeakables, eaten by a hippogriff, captured by Lucius Malfoy to become Voldermort's love child to bare him an heir.Ginny shuddered.
She walked a bit further, until she approached a clearing. A small fire burned in the center, under a cypress tree. "What the bloody hell." gasped Ginny. She watched as a small deer approached Hermione and she stroked the creature.
If it hadn't been for the unnaturally brightness of Mars, Ginny never would have seen the silver glint of the knife reflect in the night. Her eyes widened in horror as she watched Hermione raise her hand, talking soothingly to the deer.
"HERMIONE, DON'T!" screamed Ginny as Hermione lowered her arm.
End notes: Greetings at the end of the chapter! I hope I don't get too many awful reviews about this chapter, and I'm sorry if you hated it. The rest of the story isn't all sacrificing and killing. Believe it or not, I actually got the inspiration for this fic from the Even Stevens movie. Anyway, the Mars' poem is from the movie Waiting for Guffman.
SEPTEMBER NINETEENTH IS INTERNATIONAL TALK LIKE A PIRATE DAY. I know it sound stupid, but you have no idea how much fun it is to go around for an entire day talking like Jack Sparrow.saying things like "To the plank with ya!" and calling people scurvy curs. I encourage all of you to observe this fantastic holiday.
For any Buffy fans out there, the line about the goddess commanding thy majesty is the beginning of Willow's chant in Bargaining Part One.
Disclaimer: Harry Potter etc. belongs to Rowling.the definitions about Diana are from Mythology.
Trudging through the hallways, Hermione tuned out the voices of the Weasleys and Harry as she pondered on a gift for Diana. The evening had been a blessing, besides that one little incident where Hermione had to put her tongue into Ron's mouth. That was something I could have lived without, she thought to herself.
Entering Ginny's room, Hermione opened up her trunk and pulled out a copy of Ancient Mythology. Even before her role as Diana's representative, Hermione had been fascinated with the Greek and Roman gods and goddesses.
She thumbed through the book, searching for a passage about a proper sacrifice for Diana, or Artemis (Diana's Greek name). "The cypress tree is sacred to her, and all wild animals; especially the deer." Hermione turned and looked pensively out the darkened window, into the moonless sky.
"Tonight is a perfect time for a sacrifice," she realized. "Moonless sky, under a cypress tree.I'm sure there is a deer running about somewhere." She chuckled. "Tonight, You take all three forms, Goddess," she cried softly with her head out of the window. "Goddess of the sky, goddess of the earth, Goddess of the black night where the moon is hidden, the world above that is wrapped in darkness."
She closed her eyes and listened intently to Harry's laughter floating upwards. Hermione grit her teeth. "Tonight, my Goddess of Crossroads," she whispered. "Tonight we'll meet."
Hermione hurriedly placed some items for her ritual in a black canvas bag and hid it near the window. Sighing contently, she hopped into her bed and settled down for a short nap.
While in the kitchen.
"Want some ice cream, Ginny?" offered Harry as he sat on top of the Weasley's kitchen table, eating out of an ice cream carton. Ginny regarded him for a moment.
"Harry, we're supposed to be cleaning," she chided. "Not sitting on furniture and eating."
Harry shrugged and took another bite of his Brownie-Chocolate Chip ice cream. "It looks to me like you're the only one cleaning."
He was right. Fred and George did a brief mopping spell on the floor to wipe up mud and then, bored with cleaning had begun a game of Exploding Snap.
"What's so intriguing about Exploding Snap?" snapped Ginny, dusting a counter. "It seems that whenever someone gets bored, they just start to play Exploding Snap. The common room, Hogwarts express." she trailed off.
"Gin, what's wrong?" asked Harry, stuffing his mouth of the dessert.
"Hogwarts!" she gasped. "I haven't done my Potions essay! It's supposed to be three feet long! And in History of Magic I have to write a report on the founding of Diagon Alley! And.I have tons of homework and we're leaving for school in.28 hours!" She screamed and ran out of the room.
Harry shrugged. "Ask Hermione to help you," he called after he. He turned to Ron, who was pretending to vacuum.
"How does this thing even work?" asked Ron in disgust. "I don't understand." He shook his head. "Dad brought it back from one of his raids, telling Mum it would make cleaning easier." He waved the chord. "What do I do with this?"
Harry shrugged. "Aunt Petunia used to vacuum. I just mowed the lawn."
"Ron likes to de-gnome the lawn and work with the trees." snickered Fred, looking up from his game.
"It's alright, we all know about Ron and his .tree fetish." added George.
"Yeah," commented Harry. "I happen to know the real reason Ron calls it the "Whomping Willow."
George looked at his twin and both of them grew somber for a moment. "Seriously Ron," said George cautiously. "You shouldn't do things like that to the Whomping Willow."
"For God's sake, I don't do things to the Whomping Willow," snapped Ron, getting strongly irked by the teasing.
"That's good," praised Fred. "Cause you know what would happen if you did."
"What?" questioned Harry. "He'd get splinters?" He laughed at his clever joke.
Fred shook his head. "No, man. Don't you know about the lumberjack?" He raised an eyebrow and looked at his nervous brother.
"The what-er-jack?" he asked in confusion.
"Lumber-jack," pronounced George. His voice grew mysterious. "You've seriously never heard of him?"
"No, never."
Harry shook his head. "I've never heard of him either.
Fred turned to his twin. "Shall I elucidate them?" he asked.
George nodded. "By all means, dear brother."
"Well, the story goes that far on the western edge of the Forbidden Forest, a lumberjack lives. When he went to school, he was like Snape and all those other losers-always trying to past the Whomping Willow." He shook his head. "Pranksters with no talent, no plans.horrible."
"They used to play a game, trying to get near enough to touch the trunk-"
"I'm starting to remember," recalled Harry. "A boy lost an eye."
"Yes! Ten points to Gryffindor, Harry," said Fred, mimicking Professor McGonagall. "He left the school shortly after, reportedly going to St. Mungo's."
"He claimed that the Whomping Willow used mind tricks to lure him closer to the trunk."
"He left St. Mungo's after three years, vowing that the Whomping Willow will never have another victim as he was. They say he approached Dumbledore and is the Whomping Willow's watcher. He watches the tree at all times, preparing and plotting a time when he can fully reveal it's use of the Impervious curse."
"Course, he is mad," amended Fred, reading Harry and Ron's bewildered expressions.
"But where was he when we were in third year?" asked Harry. "When Sirius-" He felt a slight tremor in his voice, saying the name, "was living in the Shrieking Shack, and Crookshanks was going in there."
"In case you don't remember, the tree broke my leg," pondered Ron. "Why didn't this lumberjack save me?"
Fred shrugged. "How should I know?" He glanced at the clock. "I'm going to bed now. See ya in the morning." His twin followed him out, leaving Harry and Ron to mull over what they just heard.
"Do you believe it?" asked Ron, staring at Harry's pensive expression.
"I don't know," said Harry slowly. "It seems plausible.. after all, there was so much going on that day, and between the hippogriff and the tree and Dumbledore maybe he had told Dumbledore what happened?"
"I don't know," admitted Ron. "But the twins had a good idea. I'm going to sleep also."
"Yeah, good idea." Harry and Ron began walking up the stairs, not noticing Hermione's figuring catapulting off the roof.
"Oof," mumbled Hermione as she landed on the hard ground. "Now why didn't I just apparate?" She brushed herself off and picked up her bag, making sure all her materials were intact. She smiled and set off to find the cypress tree. She grabbed her wand. "Lumos," she whispered. The wand showed a beacon of light streaming in her path. Hermione turned her head towards the stars.
The first thing she saw in the clear night was Mars. Mars is bright tonight.Harry had told her the story of the centaur and the unicorn in first year. But instead of thinking about Voldemort, she found herself quoting a Muggle movie.
"Nothing ever happens on Mars, no entertainment, no swinging bars." She walked a little faster, searching for the tree. "You stand around, you stand some more.on a planet named for the Roman God of war. "
"Aha!" The cypress tree lay a bit to the east. She was far away enough from the house that the bonfire would be mostly blocked from view. Unfortunately, the unusually bright night would make the smoke easier to see. "I should have put a sleeping charm on Ginny and the boys," mumbled Hermione, setting up her ritual. "Oh well."
She also should have remembered to close the window. On the third story of the Weasley house, Ginny had awoken to the garbled noise of Hermione landing with a thump. "Hermione?" she called weakly. Sitting up, she realized her window was opened and her curtain was eerily blowing about like a ghost. Ginny rubbed her eyes and picked her head up off of her Potions textbook. She had been furiously scribbling her essay before she had fallen asleep.
Rising to shut the window, she tripped over Hermione's cot. "Sorry," she whispered. She waited for a response. There was no noise. "Hermione?" she asked a little louder . She suddenly noticed how quite it was. There was no breathing except her own. "Hermione?" she called, not caring whom she woke. She glanced at the open window, fearing the worst.
Throwing on a t-shirt, Ginny hopped onto the roof and surveyed the Weasley property, looking for Hermione. "Damn her," she cursed, lowering her self onto the icy rain gutter, preparing to slide down the side of the house. "I'm going to kill her once I save her," she remarked weakly, flying down the side of the house.
"Here, deery deery deery," sang Hermione. She had lit a small bonfire and was waiting for the last part of her mission-the innocent. She sat in the clearing, clutching a small vial in her right hand. Her left hand was also clenched on an object. As Hermione sat looking for the deer, she realized that the sun would be rising soon.
"I'd better start the spell," she thought. Pouring a mixture onto the ground, she traced it into a symbol and dropped a quartz stone onto the fire. The crystal glowed as the flames engulfed it.
"The goddess does command me for thy majesty," she began chanting, gazing intently at the bush as a rustling sound was heard. "Come forward, blessed one," she urged. "Know your calling."
A young fawn emerged out of the bush, slowly approaching Hermione. She smiled tenderly, marveling at the beauty of the young doe. The deer, captivated by the spell lowered its head submissively as Hermione gently stroked its head.
"It'll all be over in a minute," Hermione reassured the deer, trying to convince both herself and the animal. "It's okay." She raised the knife in her left hand and prepared to strike.
Ginny had been wandering about the property for fifteen minutes, growing increasingly more worried. As each moment passed by, she began to imagine Hermione's fate, growing progressively worse. Abducted by Death Eaters, kidnapped by Unspeakables, eaten by a hippogriff, captured by Lucius Malfoy to become Voldermort's love child to bare him an heir.Ginny shuddered.
She walked a bit further, until she approached a clearing. A small fire burned in the center, under a cypress tree. "What the bloody hell." gasped Ginny. She watched as a small deer approached Hermione and she stroked the creature.
If it hadn't been for the unnaturally brightness of Mars, Ginny never would have seen the silver glint of the knife reflect in the night. Her eyes widened in horror as she watched Hermione raise her hand, talking soothingly to the deer.
"HERMIONE, DON'T!" screamed Ginny as Hermione lowered her arm.
End notes: Greetings at the end of the chapter! I hope I don't get too many awful reviews about this chapter, and I'm sorry if you hated it. The rest of the story isn't all sacrificing and killing. Believe it or not, I actually got the inspiration for this fic from the Even Stevens movie. Anyway, the Mars' poem is from the movie Waiting for Guffman.
SEPTEMBER NINETEENTH IS INTERNATIONAL TALK LIKE A PIRATE DAY. I know it sound stupid, but you have no idea how much fun it is to go around for an entire day talking like Jack Sparrow.saying things like "To the plank with ya!" and calling people scurvy curs. I encourage all of you to observe this fantastic holiday.
For any Buffy fans out there, the line about the goddess commanding thy majesty is the beginning of Willow's chant in Bargaining Part One.