Author's Notes: Of course, there can be no absence of evil, you know
that.right? Peace in the wizarding world will not last forever. Most are
oblivious to the coming threat.
Change is constant, the trio is growing up. And the transition from childhood to young adults brings complications and problems of its own. One of the trio is about to make a very grave mistake and turn down a path that could lead to darkness.
Disclaimer: If you recognize it from the books or movies, it isn't mine.
Chapter 33: Gather Ye Rosebuds While Ye May
After lunch, the couple strolled through the magical alley for a little while, picking up a few more items in the dry goods store. They made their way to the opposite end of the alley from the fountain, where there was a bricked in archway. Snape un-shrunk his sunglasses, Mira fished hers out of her purse. She traced a symbol on the bricks with her wand and they shifted to reveal a passageway, just like the wall in Diagon Alley.
When they stepped through the passageway, into the muggle city, the temperature seemed to jump twenty degrees.
It was mid afternoon, they had a few more hours to kill before sunset when the rest of the city would cool off.
"Look, I know you don't like the modern part of the city, but would you like to go do something indoors, where there is air conditioning?"
"What did you have in mind?"
Mira led him a short distance to a genteel old house, with a white façade and window boxes overflowing with pretty pink flowers.
"Is this where we are going?"
"It's a private music school, the instructor used to buy antiques from me. I have an open invitation to drop by any time to listen to rehearsals of her chamber music ensemble. If you're up for it, they'll be starting soon."
"Anything to get out of this heat, let's go."
The recital salon was on the main floor. It was a large high-ceilinged room with a dozen antique armchairs arranged in a semi-circle around a group of musicians just getting ready to play. Mira waved at a woman seated behind a harpsichord, she waved back and pointed to two seats near the middle.
About a half dozen people were present for the rehearsal. Mira settled herself into the chair, and whispered in Snape's ear.
"The woman at the harpsichord is Desmonda. She's a witch, she used to buy instruments and furniture from me when I had the antique store."
The group began to play a selection of lush baroque compositions. The professor closed his eyes and lost himself in the music. Over the years, he had allowed himself to become enamored with this one facet of muggle culture, muggle classical music. Dumbledore had first introduced him to it back when he was in his seventh year at Hogwarts. Soothing music. Dumbledore had said that it was magic of a most powerful sort.
When the rehearsal was over, Desmonda came over and gave Mira a hug. Mira introduced the professor to the musician, who hammered him with questions about the wizarding music community in England. Sensing his discomfort over the aggressively talkative Madame Desmonda, Mira made their excuses and bid farewell, promising to try and make it to the recital the following evening.
"Of course, we don't have to go to the recital. I'm sorry, she's a bit overbearing, but she has quite a talent."
The sun was starting to set, and the temperature was dropping to a more tolerable level. The professor suggested that they go for a drink. After meeting Desmonda, his nerves could use something a little stronger than tea or coffee. Mira led him back to the bar they had shared a drink at on their first visit to New Orleans. After a couple glasses of refreshing chilled fruit wine, they made their way back to her building, where she managed to put together a simple picnic meal, and they had supper on the roof of the building between the frames of the two greenhouses, which had their glass panels removed for the warm weather.
The next few days were spent in a similar fashion. Staying up late, sleeping in, and exploring around the old part of the city in the late afternoon and evening. Mira even managed to convince Snape to go with her to a musical performance in an old Victorian-era theater a little farther away than comfortable walking distance. He adamantly refused to use muggle transportation like taxicabs or the car Mira shared with Jules and Maggie. After much pleading and cajoling, he finally agreed to make the short trip to the far edge of the Quarter in a horse drawn carriage. They enjoyed each other and the respite from the intrigue of the wizarding world immensely.
Back in England, there was an alarming chain of events beginning to unfold. In the confusion of the final battle on the grounds of Hogwarts, many of the Death Eaters had not been accounted for. The list of Death Eaters slain or imprisoned was by no means complete. Some had fled the country in fear, some who were never outed as Death Eaters simply phased back into their day-to-day lives. Nobody really knew for sure just how many Death Eaters there were to begin with. Those who had been imprisoned in Azkaban were known to the Ministry of Magic, but there were many more whose involvement with Voldemort was never confirmed.
Even more disturbing, when it was all said and done, some of the bodies on the battlefield seemed to have "disappeared". It was assumed that some were spirited away by loyal friends and family members for private burial. Especially the bodies of high born Voldemort sympathizers. The mortal remains of Lord Voldemort himself were never properly accounted for. Either nothing remained of his physical being, or it too had been spirited away for burial by a devoted follower.
At the end of the battle, all hell had broken loose. Most of the Death Eaters had fled, been captured, or slain. Students and townspeople from Hogsmeade, who had taken refuge in the castle, flooded out onto the battlefield in one final wave to crush the Dark Lord. At the battle's climax, dozens of dementors came rushing out of the forbidden forest, and total chaos ensued. People scattered in all directions, fleeing from the creatures which feasted on suffering. The dementors swarmed the wounded and dying and those who stood shaking in fear.
The final blow came not from one wizard, but from the combined efforts of several. The release of magical energy was so intense as to be blinding. It was several seconds before the survivors of the battle could make out the scorched patch of earth where Voldemort and two of his most loyal followers had stood.
The survivors of the battle wandered about shell-shocked and then erupted into joyful celebration. Well, at least most of them celebrated, there were those for whom the battle had more profound effects. The partying lasted through the night and into the next morning.
Early that next morning, the bodies of the dead were gathered up and brought to a central location and cremated on a large pyre, to discourage scavengers lured by the scent of death from venturing out of the forest. Names were recorded of all who could be identified. However for some unfortunates, there was not enough left to properly identify. The final list of casualties was compiled from the list of the dead and those who never returned from battle. A handful of witches and wizards, believed to have died in battle, turned up over the following few days, having simply gone unnoticed.
Included in the list of bodies never identified and recorded was Lucius Malfoy. His wife, Narcissa, had sent his loyal underlings Crabbe and Goyle to fetch her dying husband from the battlefield. She would not allow somebody of their social standing to die in the dirt like a commoner. Unwilling to let go of him, she sent her housemaid to Knockturn Alley to fetch a dark wizard who was accomplished in the unorthodox healing arts. The wizard said Lucius could be saved, but he would never be complete. He would be a shadow of the man he once was and very dark magic would be needed to preserve his life. Selfishly, Narcissa decided that it was better than nothing and ordered the wizard to use whatever means necessary to preserve her husband's life.
The potion used to heal him contained several highly illegal and horrific ingredients, including blood from a unicorn and hair of a stillborn child. The price for the potion was very steep, but Narcissa was willing to pay ten times over if need be to keep what was left of her husband alive. Not only was his body broken, his mind survived even more twisted and insane than before the battle. His existence was fueled by pure hatred and a thirst for revenge.
As far as Malfoy's son Draco was concerned, Lucius had died in the battle. Narcissa, fearing a Ministry raid and prosecution for her role in assisting her husband as a sympathizer of Voldemort, sent Draco out of the country to live with his aunt. He would not be returning to Hogwarts in the fall, he would resume his schooling at what was left of the Durmstrang School. At least there, his classmates would be more welcoming of him, with his familial connection to dark magic.
At first Lucius thought the nightly visitations from the Dark Lord were purely dreams. After the first few nights, he realized that the disembodied spirit of Voldemort was actually visiting him in his sleep. Lucius informed Narcissa of his nightly visitations, and what had been asked of them. After being visited herself, Narcissa agreed to make essentially a deal with the devil to see her husband restored to full health. Some time would pass however, before Lucius would be healed enough to carry out his end of the bargain. So, the couple bided their time until they would bring a new life into the world, creating a baby born to be the physical vessel which the spirit of Voldemort would inhabit. In return for giving Voledmort's spirit a body, Lucius would be restored to prime condition.
With summer drawing to a close, it was time for Snape and Mira to return to England. School would be starting shortly, and Mira's cousin and her family had returned from Exile in the Middle East, to re-establish their business in England. Unwilling to set foot back in the house where she had been snatched by the Death Eaters, Susan convinced her husband to move the family to a posh home outside of London. Mira was more than capable of running the shop on her own, and Tricia was being sent abroad to study at Beauxbatons.
Snape returned to his quarters in the castle, Mira to her small apartment above the tailor shop. But they spent time together walking around the village and adjoining countryside, enjoying evenings at the tavern and café, and having clandestine trysts at her apartment or just inside the cover of the tree line of the dark forest. When the school term started they would have to be more discreet, and wouldn't have as much time together, so they made the most of the long days of late summer.
After the exoneration of Sirius Black, where all charges against him were dismissed, he fulfilled his duty as godfather and assumed guardianship of Harry Potter. Harry's summer holidays with the Dursley's were over forever. With Sirius at his side, Harry informed his aunt and uncle that he would never darken their doorstep again, and before walking out of their lives for good, he got a chance to tell them what he really felt about them.
Harry spent the rest of summer following the final battle in a state of emotional turmoil. He had hoped that Voldemort's death would be a release for him, a weight lifted from his shoulders. But it was anything but that. For several days, he suffered blinding headaches and severe nosebleeds. His scar burned off and on and he felt a kind of emptiness, as if one of his internal organs had been wrenched out of his body. Dumbledore explained that there was a strong bond between Harry and the Dark Lord, and the severing of that bond upon Voldemort's death had affected Harry in a profound manner. He would eventually come to heal, but he would never be the same, as that part of his being was gone. Harry found that he had lost his gift of being a Parselmouth. He could no longer communicate with snakes. He wasn't particularly sad to see that gift go, it had caused him pain in the past. He also had strange dreams about Voldemort, but was given a potion by Dumbledore that would cause dreamless sleep if they became too disturbing.
Harry spent his days kicking about the countryside surrounding the little cabin Sirius had rented for them to live in until he could find steady work and arrange for more permanent housing. Harry was also able to spend a couple of weeks at the Weasley household. Hermione had come to visit as well. Her parents had prudently removed her to the safety of the muggle world until the battle was over, and then only tentatively allowed her back into wizarding society. It was only after a personal visit from Dumbledore himself that the Grangers agreed to send their daughter back to Hogwarts to finish her education. The three of them were about to enter their sixth year at Hogwarts, poised on the edge of adulthood.
Their personalities had changed little over the years. Harry was still the undoubted leader of the pack, Ron was the comic relief, Hermione the brains of the operation. During that two-week visit, Ron and Hermione had entered into the tentative stages of a romantic relationship. It hadn't progressed beyond blushing and mild flirtation, but the spark was definitely there. Ginny still carried a torch for Harry, and it was just never meant to be with Harry and Cho. However, with the events earlier in the summer, Harry wasn't particularly interested in any relationship that was more complicated than a friendship. He let Ginny down gently, telling her that if she was still available and interested when he was ready to feel that way towards somebody, then it was meant to be. But he secretly mourned the carefree lives that Hermione and Ron lived, and their ability to be lighthearted and flirtatious with each other. He wanted more than anything to have somebody special too, but felt that it wouldn't be fair to bring anybody into his complicated life. He hoped that Ginny would wait for him, but didn't know how long that wait might be and decided he wouldn't fault her if she found somebody at school to go out with.
The trio disbanded and agreed to get back together at the Weasley house a couple of days before the start of term so that they could go shopping together in Diagon Alley and spend some time exploring around Hogsmeade. Ron had been allowed to take a summer job as an errand boy for the Ministry, earning money for his school things and to spend on outings with his more privileged friends. But, still he secretly despised Malfoy for having it all handed to him on a silver platter, and he was also envious of Harry's wealth, talent, and popularity. He was worried about how he would keep Hermione impressed when she had grown up into a young woman who was more than capable of turning heads.
Change is constant, the trio is growing up. And the transition from childhood to young adults brings complications and problems of its own. One of the trio is about to make a very grave mistake and turn down a path that could lead to darkness.
Disclaimer: If you recognize it from the books or movies, it isn't mine.
Chapter 33: Gather Ye Rosebuds While Ye May
After lunch, the couple strolled through the magical alley for a little while, picking up a few more items in the dry goods store. They made their way to the opposite end of the alley from the fountain, where there was a bricked in archway. Snape un-shrunk his sunglasses, Mira fished hers out of her purse. She traced a symbol on the bricks with her wand and they shifted to reveal a passageway, just like the wall in Diagon Alley.
When they stepped through the passageway, into the muggle city, the temperature seemed to jump twenty degrees.
It was mid afternoon, they had a few more hours to kill before sunset when the rest of the city would cool off.
"Look, I know you don't like the modern part of the city, but would you like to go do something indoors, where there is air conditioning?"
"What did you have in mind?"
Mira led him a short distance to a genteel old house, with a white façade and window boxes overflowing with pretty pink flowers.
"Is this where we are going?"
"It's a private music school, the instructor used to buy antiques from me. I have an open invitation to drop by any time to listen to rehearsals of her chamber music ensemble. If you're up for it, they'll be starting soon."
"Anything to get out of this heat, let's go."
The recital salon was on the main floor. It was a large high-ceilinged room with a dozen antique armchairs arranged in a semi-circle around a group of musicians just getting ready to play. Mira waved at a woman seated behind a harpsichord, she waved back and pointed to two seats near the middle.
About a half dozen people were present for the rehearsal. Mira settled herself into the chair, and whispered in Snape's ear.
"The woman at the harpsichord is Desmonda. She's a witch, she used to buy instruments and furniture from me when I had the antique store."
The group began to play a selection of lush baroque compositions. The professor closed his eyes and lost himself in the music. Over the years, he had allowed himself to become enamored with this one facet of muggle culture, muggle classical music. Dumbledore had first introduced him to it back when he was in his seventh year at Hogwarts. Soothing music. Dumbledore had said that it was magic of a most powerful sort.
When the rehearsal was over, Desmonda came over and gave Mira a hug. Mira introduced the professor to the musician, who hammered him with questions about the wizarding music community in England. Sensing his discomfort over the aggressively talkative Madame Desmonda, Mira made their excuses and bid farewell, promising to try and make it to the recital the following evening.
"Of course, we don't have to go to the recital. I'm sorry, she's a bit overbearing, but she has quite a talent."
The sun was starting to set, and the temperature was dropping to a more tolerable level. The professor suggested that they go for a drink. After meeting Desmonda, his nerves could use something a little stronger than tea or coffee. Mira led him back to the bar they had shared a drink at on their first visit to New Orleans. After a couple glasses of refreshing chilled fruit wine, they made their way back to her building, where she managed to put together a simple picnic meal, and they had supper on the roof of the building between the frames of the two greenhouses, which had their glass panels removed for the warm weather.
The next few days were spent in a similar fashion. Staying up late, sleeping in, and exploring around the old part of the city in the late afternoon and evening. Mira even managed to convince Snape to go with her to a musical performance in an old Victorian-era theater a little farther away than comfortable walking distance. He adamantly refused to use muggle transportation like taxicabs or the car Mira shared with Jules and Maggie. After much pleading and cajoling, he finally agreed to make the short trip to the far edge of the Quarter in a horse drawn carriage. They enjoyed each other and the respite from the intrigue of the wizarding world immensely.
Back in England, there was an alarming chain of events beginning to unfold. In the confusion of the final battle on the grounds of Hogwarts, many of the Death Eaters had not been accounted for. The list of Death Eaters slain or imprisoned was by no means complete. Some had fled the country in fear, some who were never outed as Death Eaters simply phased back into their day-to-day lives. Nobody really knew for sure just how many Death Eaters there were to begin with. Those who had been imprisoned in Azkaban were known to the Ministry of Magic, but there were many more whose involvement with Voldemort was never confirmed.
Even more disturbing, when it was all said and done, some of the bodies on the battlefield seemed to have "disappeared". It was assumed that some were spirited away by loyal friends and family members for private burial. Especially the bodies of high born Voldemort sympathizers. The mortal remains of Lord Voldemort himself were never properly accounted for. Either nothing remained of his physical being, or it too had been spirited away for burial by a devoted follower.
At the end of the battle, all hell had broken loose. Most of the Death Eaters had fled, been captured, or slain. Students and townspeople from Hogsmeade, who had taken refuge in the castle, flooded out onto the battlefield in one final wave to crush the Dark Lord. At the battle's climax, dozens of dementors came rushing out of the forbidden forest, and total chaos ensued. People scattered in all directions, fleeing from the creatures which feasted on suffering. The dementors swarmed the wounded and dying and those who stood shaking in fear.
The final blow came not from one wizard, but from the combined efforts of several. The release of magical energy was so intense as to be blinding. It was several seconds before the survivors of the battle could make out the scorched patch of earth where Voldemort and two of his most loyal followers had stood.
The survivors of the battle wandered about shell-shocked and then erupted into joyful celebration. Well, at least most of them celebrated, there were those for whom the battle had more profound effects. The partying lasted through the night and into the next morning.
Early that next morning, the bodies of the dead were gathered up and brought to a central location and cremated on a large pyre, to discourage scavengers lured by the scent of death from venturing out of the forest. Names were recorded of all who could be identified. However for some unfortunates, there was not enough left to properly identify. The final list of casualties was compiled from the list of the dead and those who never returned from battle. A handful of witches and wizards, believed to have died in battle, turned up over the following few days, having simply gone unnoticed.
Included in the list of bodies never identified and recorded was Lucius Malfoy. His wife, Narcissa, had sent his loyal underlings Crabbe and Goyle to fetch her dying husband from the battlefield. She would not allow somebody of their social standing to die in the dirt like a commoner. Unwilling to let go of him, she sent her housemaid to Knockturn Alley to fetch a dark wizard who was accomplished in the unorthodox healing arts. The wizard said Lucius could be saved, but he would never be complete. He would be a shadow of the man he once was and very dark magic would be needed to preserve his life. Selfishly, Narcissa decided that it was better than nothing and ordered the wizard to use whatever means necessary to preserve her husband's life.
The potion used to heal him contained several highly illegal and horrific ingredients, including blood from a unicorn and hair of a stillborn child. The price for the potion was very steep, but Narcissa was willing to pay ten times over if need be to keep what was left of her husband alive. Not only was his body broken, his mind survived even more twisted and insane than before the battle. His existence was fueled by pure hatred and a thirst for revenge.
As far as Malfoy's son Draco was concerned, Lucius had died in the battle. Narcissa, fearing a Ministry raid and prosecution for her role in assisting her husband as a sympathizer of Voldemort, sent Draco out of the country to live with his aunt. He would not be returning to Hogwarts in the fall, he would resume his schooling at what was left of the Durmstrang School. At least there, his classmates would be more welcoming of him, with his familial connection to dark magic.
At first Lucius thought the nightly visitations from the Dark Lord were purely dreams. After the first few nights, he realized that the disembodied spirit of Voldemort was actually visiting him in his sleep. Lucius informed Narcissa of his nightly visitations, and what had been asked of them. After being visited herself, Narcissa agreed to make essentially a deal with the devil to see her husband restored to full health. Some time would pass however, before Lucius would be healed enough to carry out his end of the bargain. So, the couple bided their time until they would bring a new life into the world, creating a baby born to be the physical vessel which the spirit of Voldemort would inhabit. In return for giving Voledmort's spirit a body, Lucius would be restored to prime condition.
With summer drawing to a close, it was time for Snape and Mira to return to England. School would be starting shortly, and Mira's cousin and her family had returned from Exile in the Middle East, to re-establish their business in England. Unwilling to set foot back in the house where she had been snatched by the Death Eaters, Susan convinced her husband to move the family to a posh home outside of London. Mira was more than capable of running the shop on her own, and Tricia was being sent abroad to study at Beauxbatons.
Snape returned to his quarters in the castle, Mira to her small apartment above the tailor shop. But they spent time together walking around the village and adjoining countryside, enjoying evenings at the tavern and café, and having clandestine trysts at her apartment or just inside the cover of the tree line of the dark forest. When the school term started they would have to be more discreet, and wouldn't have as much time together, so they made the most of the long days of late summer.
After the exoneration of Sirius Black, where all charges against him were dismissed, he fulfilled his duty as godfather and assumed guardianship of Harry Potter. Harry's summer holidays with the Dursley's were over forever. With Sirius at his side, Harry informed his aunt and uncle that he would never darken their doorstep again, and before walking out of their lives for good, he got a chance to tell them what he really felt about them.
Harry spent the rest of summer following the final battle in a state of emotional turmoil. He had hoped that Voldemort's death would be a release for him, a weight lifted from his shoulders. But it was anything but that. For several days, he suffered blinding headaches and severe nosebleeds. His scar burned off and on and he felt a kind of emptiness, as if one of his internal organs had been wrenched out of his body. Dumbledore explained that there was a strong bond between Harry and the Dark Lord, and the severing of that bond upon Voldemort's death had affected Harry in a profound manner. He would eventually come to heal, but he would never be the same, as that part of his being was gone. Harry found that he had lost his gift of being a Parselmouth. He could no longer communicate with snakes. He wasn't particularly sad to see that gift go, it had caused him pain in the past. He also had strange dreams about Voldemort, but was given a potion by Dumbledore that would cause dreamless sleep if they became too disturbing.
Harry spent his days kicking about the countryside surrounding the little cabin Sirius had rented for them to live in until he could find steady work and arrange for more permanent housing. Harry was also able to spend a couple of weeks at the Weasley household. Hermione had come to visit as well. Her parents had prudently removed her to the safety of the muggle world until the battle was over, and then only tentatively allowed her back into wizarding society. It was only after a personal visit from Dumbledore himself that the Grangers agreed to send their daughter back to Hogwarts to finish her education. The three of them were about to enter their sixth year at Hogwarts, poised on the edge of adulthood.
Their personalities had changed little over the years. Harry was still the undoubted leader of the pack, Ron was the comic relief, Hermione the brains of the operation. During that two-week visit, Ron and Hermione had entered into the tentative stages of a romantic relationship. It hadn't progressed beyond blushing and mild flirtation, but the spark was definitely there. Ginny still carried a torch for Harry, and it was just never meant to be with Harry and Cho. However, with the events earlier in the summer, Harry wasn't particularly interested in any relationship that was more complicated than a friendship. He let Ginny down gently, telling her that if she was still available and interested when he was ready to feel that way towards somebody, then it was meant to be. But he secretly mourned the carefree lives that Hermione and Ron lived, and their ability to be lighthearted and flirtatious with each other. He wanted more than anything to have somebody special too, but felt that it wouldn't be fair to bring anybody into his complicated life. He hoped that Ginny would wait for him, but didn't know how long that wait might be and decided he wouldn't fault her if she found somebody at school to go out with.
The trio disbanded and agreed to get back together at the Weasley house a couple of days before the start of term so that they could go shopping together in Diagon Alley and spend some time exploring around Hogsmeade. Ron had been allowed to take a summer job as an errand boy for the Ministry, earning money for his school things and to spend on outings with his more privileged friends. But, still he secretly despised Malfoy for having it all handed to him on a silver platter, and he was also envious of Harry's wealth, talent, and popularity. He was worried about how he would keep Hermione impressed when she had grown up into a young woman who was more than capable of turning heads.