In search of Rowena's diary
A quick note was sent to Remus, for wishing him well, and one to Professor Dumbledore, informing him that she would keep herself restricted to the library and requesting him to let Remus fill in for her while she was 'away'. Little did she know that Remus was quite ill for a while and that Severus was called upon to fill in for him. The students who had signed up for Ancient Magical Artifacts were free during that period.
For days on end she remained in her room, reading books about time- traveling, making notes, searching for Rowena Ravenclaw's diary which seemed to have vanished without a trace and making much more notes. She didn't come down to eat; she requested the house elves to bring food up to her room instead. And, as always, they were eager to please.
She didn't even come down for the Quidditch match between Gryffindor and Ravenclaw. Perhaps later, she thought to herself, and she could always attend the Quidditch finale; she was sure Gryffindor would win this time, how could they not with a Seeker like Harry and with all three Chasers able to perform a perfect Charging Bull. Later that evening, judging from the riot downstairs, Gryffindor had won the match. Lierin couldn't suppress a yawn and she stretched her back. Hmm, she'd have to remind herself to congratulate Minerva. Or maybe she'd better keep that for when they had actually won the cup. Right now her eyes were tired, so very tired. She closed her eyes for while. Just for a short while she promised herself, but she didn't wake up until the next morning.
Lierin was probably the only one to be asleep, for no one in Gryffindor Tower slept that night. Not after Sirius Black's second attack. They all knew that the castle was being searched again and the whole house stayed awake in the common room, waiting to hear whether Black had been caught or not. Professor McGonagall came back at dawn, to tell them that again, Black had escaped.
The next morning a surprised Lierin found Flitwick teaching the front doors to recognise a large picture of Sirius Black; Filch was suddenly bustling up and down the corridors, boarding everything from tiny cracks in the wall to mouse holes. So Lierin asked Minerva what was going on and Minerva, obviously cross with Lierin that she had been asleep rather than chasing Black, told her the entire story; how Black had got his hands on a scrap of paper with this week's passwords and how he had appeared beside Ron's bed with a large knife. Poor Neville was in total disgrace with McGonagall. She was so furious with him that she had banned him from all future Hogsmeade visits, had given him a detention and forbidden anyone to give him the password into the Tower. Poor Neville was forced to wait outside the common room every night for somebody to let him in.
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Dumbledore had known exactly what had moved Lierin to lock herself up in her room with books. She remembered! Whether it was because of the potion that Flobby administered to her through her drinks or not, she remembered the diary, she was looking for it! Why else had she gotten up so fast after Sybill had had that sudden but fortunate preminition? The only way Lierin could recognise the warning about the four keys, was if she had read about it in Rowena's diary. But, there was a problem, or actually there were two problems. One; Lierin had no idea, didn't remember, what the diary had said about the prophecy. Why else was she looking for the diary? Two; the diary she was looking for, was missing. How he knew it was missing? Lierin had locked herself up for several days and had looked for it without result. So, naturally he had wanted to try to 'help' her, only to discover that the book was not in the library. At least not in the section where it ought to be; the forbidden section.
He sighed wearily and got up from his chair. Fawkes must have sensed the depressed mood of his master because the magnificent bird flew from his perch and settled itself on Dumbledore's arm. He stroke his head against Dumbledore's shoulder and was rewarded with a small smile and a little pat on the head. Dumbledore carried the bird towards his window.
"Do you see them, Fawkes? The Clouds of Time? I can. They are getting closer and closer. But, the main key is on the right course of discovery and once she finds out, it will take little effort to persuade the others... I hope. But she still needs to remember. I don't think I have a lot of choice. Lierin must get more of that potion that Flobby is already giving her. But what effect will that have on her? It's a powerful potion, to be handled with the uttermost care, but what other choice do I have? I cannot worry about one individual person, when all of England or perhaps even the world is at stake. If she can't handle the effect of the potion, all will be lost... and so will it be if she does not remember the prophecy in Rowena Ravenclaw's diary. I see no other option, Fawkes, Flobby must increase the amount of the potion."
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The following days, Lierin buried herself in work. Remus was well again, thank heavens, so she did have a few pleasant breaks from all the work. But, feeling she was so close to an answer, Lierin pushed herself to the limit. In daytime she taught her students and during the evenings she tried to do research on time-traveling, both the goblets and memories of past lives. The second subject was easy enough, most of the things she found she either already knew or she had written it herself. About time-traveling and memories of past lives she found close to nothing, but what she found out, she wrote down plus the name of the book she found it in, the name of the writer and where she could find it back in the library.
This endless search for clues; trying to figure out what was going and searching for information, left Lierin with the constant agony of headaches. Gradually, days turned into weeks and her lack of sleep finally started to take it's toll. Lierin noticed she lost control over her body and her rational thinking and she knew she should slow down, but the answer was right in front of her. If she could only... if she could just... and then everything would be alright. So, in pursuit of those 'if's', Lierin kept going, though she was often easily irritated. She even started to fight with Remus, who had taken it up to himself to give body to the voice of reason.
After the so-maniest time that Remus tried to slow her down, even tried her to stop the research for a while, she yelled him to leave her alone though she was perfectly aware that he was right, but that only irritated her even further. Deeply insulted Remus did leave her alone, even ignored her, or at least so Lierin thought. In reality, Remus kept a close eye on her even though she didn't notice. After their latest and so-maniest fight, Lierin felt tired practically all day every day, and it got even worse. Even her students noticed that she had lost all vitality. Due to all that, her mind started to play tricks on her and she got more and more memories of her past life. Most of the time, those memories were, odly enough, connected to Snape. Like Snape smiling at her or Snape lying near a fire-place with his head in her lap. Sometimes she could even feel her fingers running through his thick jet-black hair. Besides those more and more frequent returning memories, Lierin had weird visions and odd 'experiences'.
It first happened when she noticed that her food and drinks didn't taste the way they used to and due to paranoia, she suspected Snape of poisoning her. Those moments, breakfast, lunch and dinner, were always the worst and she would often retire to her private quarters feeling quite miserable and confused. After a while it happened more and more that she just didn't feel up to teaching her students. This to the great dismay of the children because Dumbledore had ordered them to take double Potions classes in case Ancient Magical Artefacts fell out.
Dumbledore watched her every move, watched if there was any sign of remembrance, but unfortunately there was not. Every day when Lierin looked worse, a grimmer look appeared on Dumbledore's face, for he knew she had to go through this. Once she knew, he was sure the others would follow and that they would fulfil their duties. But first, Lierin had to remember what she had read in Rowena Ravenclaw's dairy. He was sure that once Lierin would remember Rowena's prophecy about the four keys, she would investigate in a more specific direction. The founders of Hogwarts!
Often after one of those restless nights, Lierin appeared at breakfast looking frightfully pale and it was obvious she was in a bad shape. But, her hard work did pay off! One particular morning she entered the Great Hall after another few early hours spent in the library. She had found at last something usefull that she really needed to show Remus, something that might help find the solution to whatever was going on.
Not feeling in the mood to spend at least ten minutes of saying "good morning" to each and every teacher at the staff table, Lierin immediately walked to her seat at the far left side of the table. There were two professors sitting on her direct left and right side, but at least they wouldn't waste their time by saying good morning. She was the last professor to arrive and breakfast was already served. In fact, breakfast was almost over. Lierin sat down between Snape and Sinistra and as expected they said nothing. She took a small bowl of porridge and started to eat very slowly. Severus, sitting on Lierin's right, couldn't help but notice that every once and a while Lierin shivered violently. And while usually she had a huge appetite, she didn't seem to care much for her porridge that morning. Also, the fact her hands were trembling and all sweaty didn't go unnoticed by him. Without realizing it, Severus had stopped eating and he watched Lierin intently. Lierin didn't notice however as she was messing with her porridge without eating it. Her mind was engaged with entirely different matters...visions.
The dreams she had in her sleep were now harassing her in the daytime and again unfamiliar images were pouring into her mind. Lierin stopped eating altogether and her eyes were fixed on a mark somewhere in oblivion. At first everything was blurry but soon she could see two people; a man and a woman. She didn't recognise the place they were in, but it seemed as if the room could be one of Hogwarts. Vaguely she could see a large four-poster bed and the woman was lying in it, the man was near the door. From the clothes on the floor and the disheveled appearance of the man, Lierin determined something intimate had just passed. But she felt something was wrong, seriously wrong. She detected a sudden hostility between the two former lovers and she tried with all her might to see who they were, but the images were deformed and blurry and completely deprived of color, as if she were watching the two people through the eyes of a fish. The man turned around and Lierin knew she should recognise him, but she couldn't. He was about to say something, a reaction to what the woman had just said, something she hadn't heard, but before the man opened his mouth to speak, Lierin knew what he was about to say and a sharp pain sliced through the very core of her being and she pressed her hands against her ears to shelter them from the words she would hear anyway.
"Perhaps, but that's not what I wanted to prove, now is it? I wanted to prove something else, I wanted to prove you wrong, and your clothes on the floor and the tears in your eyes prove me right."
The spoon she had been holding flew through the air and smacked against Professor Sinistra's head as she let go of it to shelter her ears. This sudden act of despair put a sudden stop to the noise of chatting students and the clattering of knives and forks against the plates. All the students in the Great Hall stopped eating to watch their professor. The teachers at the staff table were looking at her too but nobody moved a muscle or made a noise. Lierin didn't notice the confusion she caused in the Great Hall. The voice she had heard, even if it had been quite distorted, had something familiar and the harshness in his movement had something familiar as well. She could hear the woman cry and the desperate sound of it made Lierin shiver. Suddenly she was pulled away from that scene and she seemed to be lost in the universe.
The darkness surrounding her was so dense, it was almost like it had turned physical so she could almost actually feel it. Only a few images flashing by broke the eternal pattern of the pitch-black darkness. One image was getting bigger though and appeared long enough for Lierin to see it. It was a passage from a book, a book Lierin felt she knew, and soon another image followed and another and another. They seemed to be all passages from the same book and they followed each other up very quickly, as if Lierin were leafing through an enormous book. "These were called the Dark years. He ruled with terror and people trembled at the mention of his name. Five people had the courage to stand up against him. They created a device that would help them defeat him... All high magic was banned from the lands... High magic devices were destroyed... She gave it to him, but why? Four of the five founders went back... They had to find out what went wrong... Four people were linked... decisions they made and didn't make were the cause of... One of the five founders turned out to be one of them, turned out to be one of the four keys, one of those who were linked... The four keys; a beast, a grim, she and the severe soul... But she didn't understand... blinded by anger and hate she... One found a high magic spell, a spell that would allow them to... high magic was forbidden for he was afraid... his future might be altered once again... they found a spell that would allow them to go... went back to stop her from her foolish act... five people couldn't stand it any longer and they stood up against him... they were the founders of... trained witches to help defeat... but the training was a slow progress and there was little time... they created a relic that would help them defeat... one brewed the potion, one got the relic, one provided the gem, one made the gem's setting and one magically put them together... they heard about a legend but the legend remained just that, it was never proven... they decided to put things at their own hands, they made the legend come true... After months of preparation they created a relic that would help them... the beast, the grim, she and the severe soul, they were the keys... They found a spell... went back... what events triggered the fatal avalanche of her emotions?... they went back... they went back... they went back. Suddenly the words seemed to evaporate and astonished Lierin watched the darkness dissolving around her. It was as if she had been walking through a veil of mist all along, a veil that was now slowly being lifted from an eerie landscape. In the far distance she recognised the contours of Hogwarts. But, it wasn't Hogwarts, or was it? Lierin didn't move and waited for the last swirls of mist to disappear. Then she noticed it was real mist covering the lands and not just ... whatever it was that had brought her here. Here, the mist gave a certain air of surrealism to her surroundings. Surroundings again heavily deformed due to what Lierin believed was a ripple in time and space. Cautiously, Lierin started to move, but after just a few steps she felt dizzy as the surroundings seemed to move along with her. Faint noises of owls hooting a foreboding chant, drifted through to her conscious mind. A silver moon cast it's mysterious rays over the earth and the wind whistling through the boughs and branches of the trees in the Forbidden Forest caused the tiny hairs at the nape of her neck to stir in anxiety. Lierin shivered, she knew something was terribly wrong and that it was best if she'd just turn around and escape this place, because she felt as if she were playing a fatal role in some grim muggle horror movie. Yet, curiosity bid her to explore the area, to try and find out where she was and why she was here. Curiosity, it is said, kills the cat. But still she continued. A cool breeze penetrated her robes and she pulled it closer around her for more warmth and she set off at a sturdy pace without noticing that her ever present handicap was gone. Lierin ignored another attack of dizziness and nausea and she kept walking. Again the surroundings moved along with her, as the countries painted on a globe would if she would have been walking inside one. Gradually the little color that had been present in this 'world' faded away as she neared the Hogwarts look-alike castle. Dark and angry clouds conspired against the earth and betrayed her by casting angry bolts of lightening towards her, ripping the innocent moonlit sky to pieces as their hungry tongues sought their way to earth. Lierin stopped to look at the spiteful clouds and she could clearly feel the sudden animosity between heaven and earth. And not an animosity in the figurative way of speaking, it was really there and she wondered why. She continued down a forsaken path but a sudden strike of lightning just ahead of her nearly caused her to jump right out of her skin. She clasped her hand around her throat as if to force her heart back down that must have moved up there because of her sudden fright, even though she knew that something like that was quite impossible. She forced herself to calm down by evening her ragged breathing, but she suddenly gasped for air when she saw the lightning strike down again, displaying a still form on the ground, a form you could only take for a body. Lierin took off at a run. Maybe it was a person in need of help, maybe this person was still alive. When she neared the body she saw that a shabby set of robes was entangled around it. She recognised it but she didn't want to. It really was a common set of robes. Many wizards wore robes like that. Still, she couldn't get rid of the feeling of terror swirling in her stomach and flooding through every fiber of her body. She knew there was only one way to make sure. Slowly she reached out for the shoulder and the merest touch of her hand caused the body to roll towards her as if by some invisible force. Lierin couldn't make out the victim's face and for the first time she cursed the severe state of deformation of the surroundings she was in. A drop of water splattered on one of her hands and when she looked down, she only saw a fleshy-looking blur. She realised that it were her tears troubling her vision and not the deformation of her surroundings, and when she sniffed and tried to wipe them away with her sleeve, more tears filled her eyes. She started to cry as a certain realisation hit her hard - she didn't really want to know who was lying there, dead. She tried to get a grip of herself and slowly she took the body in her arms, instinctively knowing what her eyes refused to see. Her tears trickled down onto his face and when her brain hesitatingly started to accept, her vision started to clear and gave her the chance to study his precious face. A pained cry escaped from her lips as she held her brother's body in her arms. Remus stared up at her from beyond this world with the quiet gaze of the dead in his eyes. A thin red scar desecrated his otherwise friendly and gentle face. Lierin threw her head backwards and cried to the heavens. A cry blissfully answered by rain.
"I swear I'll avenge your death Remus. I swear upon our mother's grave that whoever did this to you shall pay dearly. I swear I'll get him!"
She cupped his head with one of her hands with the intention to hold him close to her breast, as a mother would do to soothe her child, as a sister would do mourning her brother's death. But a sickening sound caught her attention. The sound of skin letting loose, the sound of a coconut breaking in half - or a skull. Filled with dread she shifted her gaze to Remus' face again, only to notice it wasn't just a scar that ran down his face. She nearly choked in terror as the left side of his face seemed to let loose, cutting his quiet cry in half and turning it into a macabre laugh. It made his face resemble like a gruesome Picasso. With a sickening sound the left side of his face let loose completely and fell to the ground with an ever more sickening thud. Lierin could only stare at the bloody other half that she was still cradling in her arms failing to notice that blood drained into her clothes. In shock she let his body fall out of her arms and again there was that sickening sound. But an even more macabre scene was about to force itself upon Lierin as the body split completely in half and maggots started to crawl to the surface. And Remus face, or what was left of it, suddenly turned into a skull in the last phase of it's decay. An awful stench started to penetrate her nose, a stench that hadn't been there before and a wave of nausea swept over her again. This time however, she knew she really was going to be sick, as her stomach lurched, but still her trial wasn't over. The landscape was shifting again, and again she found herself in complete, godforsaken darkness. Again images forced their way in her mind but this time each image was accompanied by a violent physical attack on her body.
"No more!" cried Lierin, "Please, no more!! I can't take this any longer, leave me alone!"
FLASH An image appeared of a man with black hair and his bulging eyes staring into forgetfulness. She didn't know him. His tongue, which stuck out of his mouth, was swollen and blue. The cord around his neck seemed to be the reason. FLASH An image appeared of her murdered brother, with half a face and his body split in two. FLASH Voldemort was holding the Goblet of Might FLASH Voldemort was torturing Snape FLASH A bright red dot appeared in Snape's abdomen. The dot traveled up and down his body, a foreboding red line in its wake. Snape cried out in pain until the red line reached his face. His eyes flew wide open and so did his mouth, but no sound came from it and his eyes saw nothing. He fell to his knees and from that position, he to fell to the ground, in half. Lierin screamed until she was hoarse and her vocal cords weren't able to produce sound anymore. Suddenly she fell down and the darkness was pulled away from her.
A quick note was sent to Remus, for wishing him well, and one to Professor Dumbledore, informing him that she would keep herself restricted to the library and requesting him to let Remus fill in for her while she was 'away'. Little did she know that Remus was quite ill for a while and that Severus was called upon to fill in for him. The students who had signed up for Ancient Magical Artifacts were free during that period.
For days on end she remained in her room, reading books about time- traveling, making notes, searching for Rowena Ravenclaw's diary which seemed to have vanished without a trace and making much more notes. She didn't come down to eat; she requested the house elves to bring food up to her room instead. And, as always, they were eager to please.
She didn't even come down for the Quidditch match between Gryffindor and Ravenclaw. Perhaps later, she thought to herself, and she could always attend the Quidditch finale; she was sure Gryffindor would win this time, how could they not with a Seeker like Harry and with all three Chasers able to perform a perfect Charging Bull. Later that evening, judging from the riot downstairs, Gryffindor had won the match. Lierin couldn't suppress a yawn and she stretched her back. Hmm, she'd have to remind herself to congratulate Minerva. Or maybe she'd better keep that for when they had actually won the cup. Right now her eyes were tired, so very tired. She closed her eyes for while. Just for a short while she promised herself, but she didn't wake up until the next morning.
Lierin was probably the only one to be asleep, for no one in Gryffindor Tower slept that night. Not after Sirius Black's second attack. They all knew that the castle was being searched again and the whole house stayed awake in the common room, waiting to hear whether Black had been caught or not. Professor McGonagall came back at dawn, to tell them that again, Black had escaped.
The next morning a surprised Lierin found Flitwick teaching the front doors to recognise a large picture of Sirius Black; Filch was suddenly bustling up and down the corridors, boarding everything from tiny cracks in the wall to mouse holes. So Lierin asked Minerva what was going on and Minerva, obviously cross with Lierin that she had been asleep rather than chasing Black, told her the entire story; how Black had got his hands on a scrap of paper with this week's passwords and how he had appeared beside Ron's bed with a large knife. Poor Neville was in total disgrace with McGonagall. She was so furious with him that she had banned him from all future Hogsmeade visits, had given him a detention and forbidden anyone to give him the password into the Tower. Poor Neville was forced to wait outside the common room every night for somebody to let him in.
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Dumbledore had known exactly what had moved Lierin to lock herself up in her room with books. She remembered! Whether it was because of the potion that Flobby administered to her through her drinks or not, she remembered the diary, she was looking for it! Why else had she gotten up so fast after Sybill had had that sudden but fortunate preminition? The only way Lierin could recognise the warning about the four keys, was if she had read about it in Rowena's diary. But, there was a problem, or actually there were two problems. One; Lierin had no idea, didn't remember, what the diary had said about the prophecy. Why else was she looking for the diary? Two; the diary she was looking for, was missing. How he knew it was missing? Lierin had locked herself up for several days and had looked for it without result. So, naturally he had wanted to try to 'help' her, only to discover that the book was not in the library. At least not in the section where it ought to be; the forbidden section.
He sighed wearily and got up from his chair. Fawkes must have sensed the depressed mood of his master because the magnificent bird flew from his perch and settled itself on Dumbledore's arm. He stroke his head against Dumbledore's shoulder and was rewarded with a small smile and a little pat on the head. Dumbledore carried the bird towards his window.
"Do you see them, Fawkes? The Clouds of Time? I can. They are getting closer and closer. But, the main key is on the right course of discovery and once she finds out, it will take little effort to persuade the others... I hope. But she still needs to remember. I don't think I have a lot of choice. Lierin must get more of that potion that Flobby is already giving her. But what effect will that have on her? It's a powerful potion, to be handled with the uttermost care, but what other choice do I have? I cannot worry about one individual person, when all of England or perhaps even the world is at stake. If she can't handle the effect of the potion, all will be lost... and so will it be if she does not remember the prophecy in Rowena Ravenclaw's diary. I see no other option, Fawkes, Flobby must increase the amount of the potion."
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The following days, Lierin buried herself in work. Remus was well again, thank heavens, so she did have a few pleasant breaks from all the work. But, feeling she was so close to an answer, Lierin pushed herself to the limit. In daytime she taught her students and during the evenings she tried to do research on time-traveling, both the goblets and memories of past lives. The second subject was easy enough, most of the things she found she either already knew or she had written it herself. About time-traveling and memories of past lives she found close to nothing, but what she found out, she wrote down plus the name of the book she found it in, the name of the writer and where she could find it back in the library.
This endless search for clues; trying to figure out what was going and searching for information, left Lierin with the constant agony of headaches. Gradually, days turned into weeks and her lack of sleep finally started to take it's toll. Lierin noticed she lost control over her body and her rational thinking and she knew she should slow down, but the answer was right in front of her. If she could only... if she could just... and then everything would be alright. So, in pursuit of those 'if's', Lierin kept going, though she was often easily irritated. She even started to fight with Remus, who had taken it up to himself to give body to the voice of reason.
After the so-maniest time that Remus tried to slow her down, even tried her to stop the research for a while, she yelled him to leave her alone though she was perfectly aware that he was right, but that only irritated her even further. Deeply insulted Remus did leave her alone, even ignored her, or at least so Lierin thought. In reality, Remus kept a close eye on her even though she didn't notice. After their latest and so-maniest fight, Lierin felt tired practically all day every day, and it got even worse. Even her students noticed that she had lost all vitality. Due to all that, her mind started to play tricks on her and she got more and more memories of her past life. Most of the time, those memories were, odly enough, connected to Snape. Like Snape smiling at her or Snape lying near a fire-place with his head in her lap. Sometimes she could even feel her fingers running through his thick jet-black hair. Besides those more and more frequent returning memories, Lierin had weird visions and odd 'experiences'.
It first happened when she noticed that her food and drinks didn't taste the way they used to and due to paranoia, she suspected Snape of poisoning her. Those moments, breakfast, lunch and dinner, were always the worst and she would often retire to her private quarters feeling quite miserable and confused. After a while it happened more and more that she just didn't feel up to teaching her students. This to the great dismay of the children because Dumbledore had ordered them to take double Potions classes in case Ancient Magical Artefacts fell out.
Dumbledore watched her every move, watched if there was any sign of remembrance, but unfortunately there was not. Every day when Lierin looked worse, a grimmer look appeared on Dumbledore's face, for he knew she had to go through this. Once she knew, he was sure the others would follow and that they would fulfil their duties. But first, Lierin had to remember what she had read in Rowena Ravenclaw's dairy. He was sure that once Lierin would remember Rowena's prophecy about the four keys, she would investigate in a more specific direction. The founders of Hogwarts!
Often after one of those restless nights, Lierin appeared at breakfast looking frightfully pale and it was obvious she was in a bad shape. But, her hard work did pay off! One particular morning she entered the Great Hall after another few early hours spent in the library. She had found at last something usefull that she really needed to show Remus, something that might help find the solution to whatever was going on.
Not feeling in the mood to spend at least ten minutes of saying "good morning" to each and every teacher at the staff table, Lierin immediately walked to her seat at the far left side of the table. There were two professors sitting on her direct left and right side, but at least they wouldn't waste their time by saying good morning. She was the last professor to arrive and breakfast was already served. In fact, breakfast was almost over. Lierin sat down between Snape and Sinistra and as expected they said nothing. She took a small bowl of porridge and started to eat very slowly. Severus, sitting on Lierin's right, couldn't help but notice that every once and a while Lierin shivered violently. And while usually she had a huge appetite, she didn't seem to care much for her porridge that morning. Also, the fact her hands were trembling and all sweaty didn't go unnoticed by him. Without realizing it, Severus had stopped eating and he watched Lierin intently. Lierin didn't notice however as she was messing with her porridge without eating it. Her mind was engaged with entirely different matters...visions.
The dreams she had in her sleep were now harassing her in the daytime and again unfamiliar images were pouring into her mind. Lierin stopped eating altogether and her eyes were fixed on a mark somewhere in oblivion. At first everything was blurry but soon she could see two people; a man and a woman. She didn't recognise the place they were in, but it seemed as if the room could be one of Hogwarts. Vaguely she could see a large four-poster bed and the woman was lying in it, the man was near the door. From the clothes on the floor and the disheveled appearance of the man, Lierin determined something intimate had just passed. But she felt something was wrong, seriously wrong. She detected a sudden hostility between the two former lovers and she tried with all her might to see who they were, but the images were deformed and blurry and completely deprived of color, as if she were watching the two people through the eyes of a fish. The man turned around and Lierin knew she should recognise him, but she couldn't. He was about to say something, a reaction to what the woman had just said, something she hadn't heard, but before the man opened his mouth to speak, Lierin knew what he was about to say and a sharp pain sliced through the very core of her being and she pressed her hands against her ears to shelter them from the words she would hear anyway.
"Perhaps, but that's not what I wanted to prove, now is it? I wanted to prove something else, I wanted to prove you wrong, and your clothes on the floor and the tears in your eyes prove me right."
The spoon she had been holding flew through the air and smacked against Professor Sinistra's head as she let go of it to shelter her ears. This sudden act of despair put a sudden stop to the noise of chatting students and the clattering of knives and forks against the plates. All the students in the Great Hall stopped eating to watch their professor. The teachers at the staff table were looking at her too but nobody moved a muscle or made a noise. Lierin didn't notice the confusion she caused in the Great Hall. The voice she had heard, even if it had been quite distorted, had something familiar and the harshness in his movement had something familiar as well. She could hear the woman cry and the desperate sound of it made Lierin shiver. Suddenly she was pulled away from that scene and she seemed to be lost in the universe.
The darkness surrounding her was so dense, it was almost like it had turned physical so she could almost actually feel it. Only a few images flashing by broke the eternal pattern of the pitch-black darkness. One image was getting bigger though and appeared long enough for Lierin to see it. It was a passage from a book, a book Lierin felt she knew, and soon another image followed and another and another. They seemed to be all passages from the same book and they followed each other up very quickly, as if Lierin were leafing through an enormous book. "These were called the Dark years. He ruled with terror and people trembled at the mention of his name. Five people had the courage to stand up against him. They created a device that would help them defeat him... All high magic was banned from the lands... High magic devices were destroyed... She gave it to him, but why? Four of the five founders went back... They had to find out what went wrong... Four people were linked... decisions they made and didn't make were the cause of... One of the five founders turned out to be one of them, turned out to be one of the four keys, one of those who were linked... The four keys; a beast, a grim, she and the severe soul... But she didn't understand... blinded by anger and hate she... One found a high magic spell, a spell that would allow them to... high magic was forbidden for he was afraid... his future might be altered once again... they found a spell that would allow them to go... went back to stop her from her foolish act... five people couldn't stand it any longer and they stood up against him... they were the founders of... trained witches to help defeat... but the training was a slow progress and there was little time... they created a relic that would help them defeat... one brewed the potion, one got the relic, one provided the gem, one made the gem's setting and one magically put them together... they heard about a legend but the legend remained just that, it was never proven... they decided to put things at their own hands, they made the legend come true... After months of preparation they created a relic that would help them... the beast, the grim, she and the severe soul, they were the keys... They found a spell... went back... what events triggered the fatal avalanche of her emotions?... they went back... they went back... they went back. Suddenly the words seemed to evaporate and astonished Lierin watched the darkness dissolving around her. It was as if she had been walking through a veil of mist all along, a veil that was now slowly being lifted from an eerie landscape. In the far distance she recognised the contours of Hogwarts. But, it wasn't Hogwarts, or was it? Lierin didn't move and waited for the last swirls of mist to disappear. Then she noticed it was real mist covering the lands and not just ... whatever it was that had brought her here. Here, the mist gave a certain air of surrealism to her surroundings. Surroundings again heavily deformed due to what Lierin believed was a ripple in time and space. Cautiously, Lierin started to move, but after just a few steps she felt dizzy as the surroundings seemed to move along with her. Faint noises of owls hooting a foreboding chant, drifted through to her conscious mind. A silver moon cast it's mysterious rays over the earth and the wind whistling through the boughs and branches of the trees in the Forbidden Forest caused the tiny hairs at the nape of her neck to stir in anxiety. Lierin shivered, she knew something was terribly wrong and that it was best if she'd just turn around and escape this place, because she felt as if she were playing a fatal role in some grim muggle horror movie. Yet, curiosity bid her to explore the area, to try and find out where she was and why she was here. Curiosity, it is said, kills the cat. But still she continued. A cool breeze penetrated her robes and she pulled it closer around her for more warmth and she set off at a sturdy pace without noticing that her ever present handicap was gone. Lierin ignored another attack of dizziness and nausea and she kept walking. Again the surroundings moved along with her, as the countries painted on a globe would if she would have been walking inside one. Gradually the little color that had been present in this 'world' faded away as she neared the Hogwarts look-alike castle. Dark and angry clouds conspired against the earth and betrayed her by casting angry bolts of lightening towards her, ripping the innocent moonlit sky to pieces as their hungry tongues sought their way to earth. Lierin stopped to look at the spiteful clouds and she could clearly feel the sudden animosity between heaven and earth. And not an animosity in the figurative way of speaking, it was really there and she wondered why. She continued down a forsaken path but a sudden strike of lightning just ahead of her nearly caused her to jump right out of her skin. She clasped her hand around her throat as if to force her heart back down that must have moved up there because of her sudden fright, even though she knew that something like that was quite impossible. She forced herself to calm down by evening her ragged breathing, but she suddenly gasped for air when she saw the lightning strike down again, displaying a still form on the ground, a form you could only take for a body. Lierin took off at a run. Maybe it was a person in need of help, maybe this person was still alive. When she neared the body she saw that a shabby set of robes was entangled around it. She recognised it but she didn't want to. It really was a common set of robes. Many wizards wore robes like that. Still, she couldn't get rid of the feeling of terror swirling in her stomach and flooding through every fiber of her body. She knew there was only one way to make sure. Slowly she reached out for the shoulder and the merest touch of her hand caused the body to roll towards her as if by some invisible force. Lierin couldn't make out the victim's face and for the first time she cursed the severe state of deformation of the surroundings she was in. A drop of water splattered on one of her hands and when she looked down, she only saw a fleshy-looking blur. She realised that it were her tears troubling her vision and not the deformation of her surroundings, and when she sniffed and tried to wipe them away with her sleeve, more tears filled her eyes. She started to cry as a certain realisation hit her hard - she didn't really want to know who was lying there, dead. She tried to get a grip of herself and slowly she took the body in her arms, instinctively knowing what her eyes refused to see. Her tears trickled down onto his face and when her brain hesitatingly started to accept, her vision started to clear and gave her the chance to study his precious face. A pained cry escaped from her lips as she held her brother's body in her arms. Remus stared up at her from beyond this world with the quiet gaze of the dead in his eyes. A thin red scar desecrated his otherwise friendly and gentle face. Lierin threw her head backwards and cried to the heavens. A cry blissfully answered by rain.
"I swear I'll avenge your death Remus. I swear upon our mother's grave that whoever did this to you shall pay dearly. I swear I'll get him!"
She cupped his head with one of her hands with the intention to hold him close to her breast, as a mother would do to soothe her child, as a sister would do mourning her brother's death. But a sickening sound caught her attention. The sound of skin letting loose, the sound of a coconut breaking in half - or a skull. Filled with dread she shifted her gaze to Remus' face again, only to notice it wasn't just a scar that ran down his face. She nearly choked in terror as the left side of his face seemed to let loose, cutting his quiet cry in half and turning it into a macabre laugh. It made his face resemble like a gruesome Picasso. With a sickening sound the left side of his face let loose completely and fell to the ground with an ever more sickening thud. Lierin could only stare at the bloody other half that she was still cradling in her arms failing to notice that blood drained into her clothes. In shock she let his body fall out of her arms and again there was that sickening sound. But an even more macabre scene was about to force itself upon Lierin as the body split completely in half and maggots started to crawl to the surface. And Remus face, or what was left of it, suddenly turned into a skull in the last phase of it's decay. An awful stench started to penetrate her nose, a stench that hadn't been there before and a wave of nausea swept over her again. This time however, she knew she really was going to be sick, as her stomach lurched, but still her trial wasn't over. The landscape was shifting again, and again she found herself in complete, godforsaken darkness. Again images forced their way in her mind but this time each image was accompanied by a violent physical attack on her body.
"No more!" cried Lierin, "Please, no more!! I can't take this any longer, leave me alone!"
FLASH An image appeared of a man with black hair and his bulging eyes staring into forgetfulness. She didn't know him. His tongue, which stuck out of his mouth, was swollen and blue. The cord around his neck seemed to be the reason. FLASH An image appeared of her murdered brother, with half a face and his body split in two. FLASH Voldemort was holding the Goblet of Might FLASH Voldemort was torturing Snape FLASH A bright red dot appeared in Snape's abdomen. The dot traveled up and down his body, a foreboding red line in its wake. Snape cried out in pain until the red line reached his face. His eyes flew wide open and so did his mouth, but no sound came from it and his eyes saw nothing. He fell to his knees and from that position, he to fell to the ground, in half. Lierin screamed until she was hoarse and her vocal cords weren't able to produce sound anymore. Suddenly she fell down and the darkness was pulled away from her.