Well, I originally wrote this tale about a year ago for a contest (which I won, by the way... well, I didn't WIN, exactly. I tied. But I still get a prize!), and I've been told it is good... shrug Well, that'll be my spiel for today. I know the story's not exactly to the book, but as I said, I wrote it about a year ago, before OotP came out...I know that the dead cannot really be rewaken in HP, but heyyyy it's still a good story... A major influence on this was definitely Sabriel, by Garth Nix though. Awesome book.
Disclaimer- I do not own Harry Potter. Harry Potter is a registered trademark of J.K. Rowling. (Tries to remember the rest of a proper disclaimer) Umm.... No infringement of copyright is intended.
Draco's POV.
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Raising the Dead
By GoldenRed Phoenixia
I don't know why we never looked at her as anything else. I'll admit, when she first started speaking, the story was quite ludicrous. Necromancy? Who'd believe it? Necromancy, the Lost Art. Necromancy, the art none could perform. They should have listened. After all, after her experience in her first year, it would come as no surprise she was very sensitive to dark magic, would it?
I admit. I never saw her as anything myself. Just another of those pitiful Weasleys, just another poor goody-two-shoes. Some said she was just 'Ron Wealsey's cute little sister,' or something like that. Never as a real person. Never as a person who knew things, felt things, thought things. Forever a little girl, with a big imagination.
A few sobs filled the delicate air of the funeral. Everyone wore downcast faces, dark clothing, in mourning. For her. A bang echoed through the room as Ron Weasley snapped the cheaply-made casket shut. It reminded me....
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The library door was thrown open loudly, and a distraught looking Ginny Weasley dashed in, earning a few hard glares from Madam Pince.
"Hermione!" I heard her call, her voice carrying a tone of desperation and worry. A shrill high-pitched voice, that captured my attention. I was about to yell at them to be quiet, throwing in a few nasty insults for good measure, of course. But what I heard next was even more interesting, I couldn't help listening.
"Yes, Ginny?" The mudblood replied. "What is it? Trouble with potions?"
"No! There's something in the Forbidden Forest! A dark aura! I can feel it, and I never felt anything like it before!" the youngest Weasley said, lowering her voice slightly. Even so, she was worried- everything about her, her posture, her expression, her tone, said so.
Granger sighed. "Not THIS again...." She said, exasperated. "Ginny, the Forbidden Forest is filled the brimming with Dark creatures. You probably just felt another one of those." She turned back to her Advanced Arithmancy book.
"No, Herm, aren't you listening? It's something different! I know what Dark creatures feel like, and it's not that!" She ran her fingers through her long red hair in exasperation. Apparently, no one was listening, yet again. "I did some research, and the feeling is similar to the one described by who-was-it, that wizard a long time ago, the first one that felt the Magical Auras and wrote about them, concerning a necromancer!"
Granger laughed outright. "Necromancy? No one now can cast Necromancy, at least, not without the Ancient Books. And they were destroyed when the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers flooded!" She added, as if Weasley didn't know, "You know, in the BCE times."
Ginny sighed. "But don't you at least think it's worth thinking about?"
The mudblood grinned. "Your imagination's been working overtime, Ginny. Need any help with schoolwork?"
Ginny gave up. "Yeah... Can you help with the De-itching Potion? Snape's assigned a two foot essay on it..."
I turned back to my Transfiguration homework. It was interesting, but like Granger said, Weasley's imagination was probably working overtime. She probably stayed up late daydreaming about Potter and didn't get enough sleep or something.
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That wasn't the last I heard of that, though I didn't think much about it for a while. I never paid too much attention... She seemed to get increasingly aggravated that no one believed her, while all the while, according to her, the dark aura was getting stronger and stronger. Rumours began.
I'd bet the Dream Team a good million galleons that they wished they had believed her now.
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"Hello, Draco," Pansy said in an annoying voice. "Can I sit here?"
"Sit where you want," I snapped, not looking at her. Just because I took her to a Ball in fourth year... Aren't I allowed to make a mistake? My whole life is a mistake, after all. Sure, she was a great girl, but she got irritating after the first week. So irritating you just wanted to strangle her for it.
She lowered her voice. "Did you heard about that Ginny Weasley?" she asked. "She's been so desperate for attention, she's been swearing up and down there's a necromancer in the Forbidden Forest." She laughed loudly, staring openly at the Weasley in question.
"What is it to us?" I asked coldly. "What does it matter to us if she's making things up? What do we care?" I watched the Weaslette too- What did I have to be ashamed of? All I saw was a petite girl, with frizzy red hair, in second-hand robes that were two sizes too large for her.
The grin on Pansy's ugly face slowly disappeared. "Aren't you going to laugh at her for it?" Her squinty dark eyes, which I imagine she thought of as beautiful, well up with tears. "Aren't you happy with me for telling you?" She asked petulantly.
"No." I replied venomously. "The only thing that would make me happy," I paused for effect, "was if you left me alone!!"
Pansy burst into tears. Pathetic. She got up, and dashed out of the Great Hall, crying the entire way, and causing a lot of stares. Truly pathetic.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the Weaslette stare at me. Hey, just because I didn't like Pansy and had told her I didn't care about what she had told me, didn't mean I wasn't about to use it! "Hey, Little Weasley! So desperate for attention now, aren't we? Saying that there was necromancers in the Forbidden Forest- And here I thought your brother was the stupid one!" The Slytherin table cracked up. Weasley's face paled in anger and pain.
"For your information, Malfoy, there's only one necromancer!" She yelled back, and stormed out of the Great Hall.
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I'll admit, I laughed at her greatly the next few weeks. Most of the school did, either behind her back or openly. Those few who didn't sent her sympathetic looks. I even overheard the Dream Team discussing whether or not she needed psychological help. Almost no one took her even remotely seriously.
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I next encountered her at midnight, sneaking out of the school.
I reached out and grasped the shoulder of a dark-clothed figure. It whirled around, startled.
"Malfoy!" she hissed. "What are you doing out here?"
"I could ask the same of you," I replied, "Little Weasel. What are you doing out here? Sad no one will believe your stupid story? Going to go jump off a tower? Or going into the Forbidden Forest to fight your big bad necromancer?"
"When I ask a question, Malfoy, I expect an answer!" She snarled.
"I? I, Little Weasel, was bored, and I decided to take a stroll. What is there to be afraid of? Filch? That cat?" I laughed scornfully. "You're going into the Forbidden Forest, aren't you?"
"Maybe,"she replied. "Why would I tell you? Now, let me go, or you're not having kids."
I laughed again. "Weasley, say there really is a necromancer out there. What do you think is going to happen? You're just a little girl, a little Weasley, loved your entire life. You know nothing. You can do nothing. You are nothing. Do you really expect to win? You're nothing to a necromancer." I had meant it as an insult, but she took it another way.
"You know," she said thoughtfully. "You're right. I haven't prepared. I don't know what a necromancer can and cannot do. I was too hasty to prove myself. Thank you for your advice." Suddenly, she jabbed one of her fingernails beneath on my mine, and, cursing, I let go in pain. She let of a small mocking laugh, and without further ado, was gone.
"Stupid- little..." I swore, then froze.
"Mew. Mew..."
I bolted, Mrs. Norris at my heels, yowling for her master.
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I don't know why I told her what I did. I don't know why she actually listened. I don't know why I do what I do. There are a lot of things I don't know. I don't know why I even bothered to tell her. She's still died, didn't she?
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Overnight, Ginny Weasley had disappeared. Overnight, Hogwarts was thrown into chaos. Potter and Granger were afraid she had become depressed with the fact no one listened to her, ad had committed suicide. Weasley was worried, and thus, was quite mad. I knew that clearly once he started accusing me of stealing her and locking her away in Malfoy Mansion. Why would I do that?
We knew nothing until a particular Care of Magical Creatures class, by the Forbidden Forest.
"Lord Hagrid?" Something asked. I looked up- to see Hagrid bending down to talk to a bizarre creature that seemed to be a white rabbit with wings. It was the size of perhaps a large cat, sitting on its hind legs. "I have come to tell you what you have been seeking."
"Admarth!" Hagrid said. "What is it?"
"The one you have been seeking, I should have said. I have news of the one you call Ginny Weasley."
"Tell us! We bin worried sick!"
I almost raised an eyebrow. Perhaps this 'Admarth' was another of Hagrid's hybrids.
"She is dead."
"Whaaaaatt?!?!?!?!" came the now-youngest Weasley's voice. "It can't be! Ginny can't be dead-"
Potter looked extremely pale, and was holding Weasley's mouth shut. Granger looked close to fainting.
"Please- continue." Potter said, in a shocked voice.
"She was killed by a necromancer." Admarth said, as calmly and as coolly as one would sit in a ceremony. "No, don't give me those looks. Yes, Necromancy is still alive in this world. I have been watching the one in the woods for quite some time."
"How'd she die?" came a rumbling voice. Hagrid. "And why didn't yeh tell us?"
"Because you did not ask. I knew someone sensitive would pick up on the aura, and I assumed you would search the woods. As for her, she died bravely. There was a brief confrontation, but this was only to buy time, for the necromancer to summon a Demon, one of the Greater Dead. She was alert, and had prepared for the battle well, but sheer power overwhelmed her. She knew enough not to try certain spells that would have no effect, but it took only a few minutes for the demon to slaughter her. One quick demon-spell, and she was gone, to the Realms of the Lesser Dead."
"But- How?" Granger asked. Even in a moment in which a friend of hers died, she was still curious. "The Ancient Books were destroyed in the flood of the Tigris and Euphrates!"
"Yes, they were. However, anything important was copied and kept in Egypt, where the Nile was much more predictable. We had believed they were destroyed until the discovery of the tombs of Tutankhamun. We immeadiately confiscated the scroll, of course, and kept it under lock. Any who had a look at it understood nothing- A scroll was missing. However, in the Dark Times, when the great Lord-who-must-not-be-named was strong, the one you call Bartemius Crouch commanded the Scroll be read and the power resurrected. An Army of the Dead- what a thing to be feared! However, the defeat of the Lord-who-must-not-be-named, by the then-young Harry Potter put a stop to the work. In the mass mayhem than resulted, with the Death Eaters being rounded up, and so on, none noticed that one of the copies of the Scroll had been stolen- for, of course, the researchers assigned to the Scroll were not going to be using the actual document, and had surreptiously copied it, hieroglyph by hieroglyph. When the theft was discovered, none thought much of it- few can read hieroglyphics, and it was believed that there was still not enough of the spells there to use Necromancy. They were wrong.
"So now, the Lost Art has been resurrected. Now, there is only time..."
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So. So, we are watching as the casket containing the body of Virginia Adora Weasley is lowered to the ground. In the distance, I hear Potter and his little friend, Weasley, swearing revenge. On who, I wonder?
Speaking of wondering, I'll bet a thousand galleons you want to know why I am here. Why I am telling you this. Why I am wasting time sitting here at this funeral. There may be many things I do not know, but this is not one of them.
I am the necromancer. And none shall stop me from creating my army of the Greater and Lesser Dead.
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Great fun, wasn't that? Now, do me a favour and leave a review. If you want to flame, go ahead, you're within your rights to do that. Just give me a reason why you didn't like it, and CC it, if you will.
Goldenred Phoenixia.