Chapter 20: Hagalaz
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. Harry Potter, I do not own. I do own Harry Potter, not. Harry, I do not own, Potter. Potter own not Harry do I. Not do Potter own I Harry.
Thanks for 615 reviews goes to: LeatherLibraries(x2), Haystack8190, samhaincat, willowfairy, Cho Chang-Emotional Dark Hole, Go10, jules37, Gizelle, draconas, DeLany, KrystyWroth, gummy bear(x2), kessi1011, Rhiannon Paige, Madam Midnight, Sam8, liar, PhAnToM-ChiK, fantasymei-aqua, RedWitch1, Arafel2, relena333, RandomOddity, tennisplaya278, citcat299, Storm079, Sa, jaderabbit, toothpicks, KingKinkyCadillacWhore, mesmer, Saraiyu, Plaidly Lush, heavengurl899, seth blade, Kami, Carmione (x2), amsev, PinkTribeChick, Miss Law, Alyssium (x3), btvsgoddess, Princess of Light, MsLessa, ToOtHpIcK.
A/N: A number of very important announcements…
First of all, and most exciting: I'M AN AUNTIE! As of 10:30 pm, Thursday 27th May, 2004. Everyone celebrate the arrival of my new niece, Bethan – chocolate and champagne in copious quantities!
Second of all, my exams have gone fine – English Literature was this morning, in which I rambled about Atticus being a good parent and how poets presented love in their poems. Made most of the poetry analysis up on the spot, which is apparently how you're meant to do it.
Thirdly, some bad news. Due to the arrival of Bethan and subsequent visits to see her (my sister lives a good few hours' drive away), coupled with the fact that after next week my exams start getting really vicious in number, Fallen is on hold for the next three weeks. It was difficult enough to get this chapter done as it is!
Fourthly, some good news: Over the past month or so, in my rather lacking spare time between Fallen, school, revision and other things, I've been working on a short fic in three parts. This only needs one or two more scenes to finish it, which should be just about manageable (especially as they're the kind of scenes that make you want to write them) and so, over the next three weeks, I'll be putting this fic up on Fridays in place of Fallen. It's called Cursed; it's sort of D/Hr, and its very evil. People on my Fallen update list will receive update notices for Cursed.
Fifthly, massive thanks to the heroine of this chapter, Syco, who stepped in when all my usual betae mysteriously vanished the evening of the update when I desperately needed someone to check the chapter over. For services rendered in a great time of need, I award her an Order of Merlin and a cameo somewhere later on.
Sixthly, I'm out of things to announce. Go read. Enjoy!
The gem cannot be polished without friction, nor man perfected without trials.
Chinese Proverb
'Harry?'
The weekend had passed in a blur of homework, chess games with Ron and conversation around the common room fireplace, and Monday morning had come round once more to find the seventh-years leaning against the walls outside the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom, waiting for Professor Delaney to arrive.
'Harry? Did you hear what I just said?'
He was startled out of his thoughts by Hermione's voice. 'Er…' he said, looking upwards and blinking. 'Sorry, Hermione…'
She wasn't angry, just gave him a sad little smile that was somehow worse than her annoyance, and he vowed for what felt like the hundredth time to be more attentive, to stop letting his thoughts drift off into memories of the past and worries of the future. It just felt very difficult to stay in the present…
'I said that I was going to arrange a preliminary meeting of the DA,' she repeated. 'Not a teaching lesson as such, more administration. Seeing how many people there'll be, telling people what kinds of things you'll be teaching, perhaps a review of what we did last year… is tomorrow alright for you?'
Harry shrugged. 'It's fine. I could do tonight, if that'd be better…'
Hermione shook her head. 'Too soon, I'd never get the word out in time. Besides, I'm busy tonight… tomorrow's better.'
Harry nodded, and Ron, standing on the other side of Hermione, frowned. 'You're busy tonight? Doing what?'
'Meeting a friend to study,' she said lightly, looking not at him but down the corridor, and smiling when she saw the professor walking briskly towards them.
'Good morning, class,' he beamed, opening the door to the classroom, and the students began to trickle in slowly with the weight of another week's classes weighing on them. Harry was one of the last to enter, and took his place next to Ron quietly, waiting for Delaney to begin.
'Alright, today we're going to be revising and practicing some of the basic defensive spells. Does everyone remember the incantation for the basic shield charm? Yes?'
'Protego,' said Hermione with a neat smile.
'Very good, Miss Granger. The Shield Charm is most useful…'
Harry began to drift off again. He knew all of this anyway; he remembered teaching that exact spell in the DA last year. And while he was peripherally aware of Hermione hissing excitedly to Ron that, 'This will be great for the DA!' he somehow couldn't keep his concentration on the present.
It wasn't just the abrupt loss of Sirius that was hurting him; it was the fact that he knew he should have been more careful, not put himself in danger, and if he hadn't gone running off like an idiot Sirius would still be alive. That hurt too, a painful shard of guilt to match the hole where Sirius had been torn away.
He sighed a little, trying to concentrate on Professor Delaney. After all, he needed to know everything he could about how to defend himself, how to fight. It still hung over him. The Prophecy. And either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives.
That was the other thing that weighed on him lately, turned up in his dreams at night. It didn't have the pain of seeing Sirius fall backwards through the veil again and again, or the chilling horror of seeing his friends falling to the ground, injured or screaming or dead, in imaginary battles that his subconscious would not stop dwelling on. It was grey and heavy and cold like a lump of stone, listening to Professor Trelawney prophesising that he would murder or be murdered.
It struck him with sudden bitter irony that all those times in the past two years when she'd predicted his death, she may have been right.
It was a frightening idea, killing Voldemort, and seemed somehow impossible. Voldemort wasn't someone who could be killed. He was someone to be escaped from, someone to keep the Philosopher's Stone safe from, someone to rescue Ginny from, deep in the bowels of the Chamber of Secrets. He was someone to duel with and to fight against, dodging around tombstones or in the Department of Mysteries, but never someone to attack, to kill.
Harry felt very distant from the rest of his classmates in that moment. To most of them this was all academics and exams and the chance to have some fun in lessons when they did some practice duels, and to Harry it was life and death.
To Ron and Hermione, and some of the others who'd been in the DA, it could turn out to be life-and-death knowledge, if it came to open war and battles and magical armies. But at this very moment they would only be thinking about the DA and schoolwork and perhaps small fights, little skirmishes: nothing on the scale that Harry knew he'd have to face one day: a fight to the death with Voldemort.
It made him feel very, very alone, and he longed for Sirius even more, for a warm smile and some words of advice, of comfort, reassurance that he could and would face the destiny that had been prophesised.
Perhaps he should tell Ron, tell Hermione, but as he glanced at his friend's faces he knew he couldn't. He knew they cared about him, and telling them would put this weight on their shoulders too, and he didn't want that. He wanted them to be as happy as they could be, with Voldemort's return and propaganda circulating. He wouldn't weigh them down any further, not until he had to.
Ron nudged him sharply in the ribs, causing Harry to jump, and he looked upwards to see Professor Delaney looking at him with a questioning look.
'Did you hear my question?' he asked, with a raised eyebrow that showed that he knew Harry hadn't. Grimly, Harry wondered if he was going to lose house points.
'Sorry, Professor, I didn't…'
Delaney just gave him a good-natured smile, and repeated himself. 'Do you know the incantation for the Blasting Curse?'
'Discutio,' Harry replied, and attempted to keep his attention on the lesson from then on.
It had come as quite a surprise to Hermione when, at the end of their conversation, Draco had casually asked if she'd be in the library again on Monday evening. She, realising that he wanted to talk to her again, had said that she probably would be.
He was already there when he arrived, working calmly on an essay, a fat book open in front of him and a pale piece of parchment half-full of writing. She paused a moment before approaching him, watching minute frowns and small smiles crossing his face. She didn't know his expressions as well as she did Harry's or Ron's, but she'd discovered two things about them: one, that he could imitate any emotion he wished to show perfectly, and two, that he was almost unable to hide any of his real feelings. Which made sense, in a way. If he'd never felt them before, he'd never learnt to hide them, and when he wasn't specifically trying to mimic an emotion his face betrayed him. Hermione wondered how long it would take him to learn how to hide that, to make his face illegible.
'Were you planning on standing there all day?'
She started as the blond Slytherin looked over his shoulder at her, raising an eyebrow, but pulled herself together quickly.
'No, only for a minute,' Hermione replied, knowing that she couldn't come up with an excuse and the truth was as good a remark as any, and crossed to the table where he sat. 'What subject's the essay for?'
'Runes,' he explained. 'Revision, we're going into the meanings of various runes in greater detail this term.'
She sat down and took a glance at his essay, curious. 'A one-and-a-half foot essay on the meaning of any rune from the Elder Futhark,' she read. 'Which one did you choose… oh, hagalaz.'
Glancing over his first paragraph, she read, 'Hagalaz begins the second Aett with the theme of drastic change, destruction and personal ordeals.' It wasn't difficult to see why he'd selected that rune in particular. Drastic change.
And you couldn't get much more drastic than what had happened to him. 'Do you want to finish that now? I've got some Defence homework I could get started on…'
He shook his head. 'It's not due for a while,' he said, and rolled the parchment up swiftly, beginning to put his things back into his bag.
Hermione cast around for a conversation topic. 'Do you like Runes?' she asked eventually, knowing that it was a silly question – he had to like it, else he wouldn't have taken it…
'I don't know.'
His answer surprised her for a moment, then confused her, until she remembered, feeling rather stupid, that he'd only just begun to feel emotions such as liking. He probably didn't even know how it felt to like something…
He carried on. 'I think I may like it. Runes… interest me, or they appear to. The idea of having a language where the letters mean something more than just a sound.'
She nodded, smiling. 'It is interesting. It's just a shame I couldn't take more than five NEWTs…'
'You could probably manage six, if you didn't have any free periods…' Draco said thoughtfully, but Hermione shook her head.
'I tried doing more subjects than we're supposed to in third year,' she said. 'I just got completely worn out…'
'Surprising, I'd have thought you'd have loved it,' he said, then frowned. 'But how did you do extra lessons? We didn't have any free periods…'
Drat.
She couldn't tell him about the Time Turner, and quickly evaded. 'It was… er… rather a complicated system,' she invented, hoping it didn't sound too much like she was avoiding his question. 'It'd take forever to explain…'
He gave her a rather sharp look, then shrugged elegantly, allowing the subject to drop. 'Why did you get worn out?'
'I barely had any free time,' she explained. 'And I was up really late every night doing homework. Why did you ask?' she added suddenly, realising that it was a slightly odd question – everyone got worn out from working too hard. 'Did you think I spend all my time doing homework?'
'I'd never really considered what you did in your spare time,' he said simply. 'And I suppose I… forgot that humans need breaks from working…'
The way he spoke, talking about humans as though he wasn't one - or at least partly one - himself, made Hermione shiver as though someone had just run an ice-cold finger along her spine. 'You are human,' she said firmly.
'Only for a month,' he pointed out; her eyes met his in that moment, and she couldn't identify the feeling in them though she could see its existence clearly. It was as colourless as his eyes, and cold – not naturally so, in the way that ice or metal is cold, but in the way that something living is cold when it's been left outside in the heart of winter for too long and the snows have shrouded it.
Her fingernails bit her palm, and she looked sharply down at the table, unaccountably spooked. Hermione tried to force the conversation back on topic.
'Don't Fallen need breaks from work?' she asked, surprised by her tone of voice; it was strangely harsh and she didn't quite know why.
'No,' was his answer, along with a sigh, 'just sleep. And food, of course. Rest and recreation is… an emotional need.'
She wasn't sure whether the brain actually required rest other than sleep – were Fallen brains significantly different to human ones, as well as their personalities? – but didn't ask; she wanted to get off the topic. Fortunately, while she was searching for a topic, Draco came up with one.
'So what do you do in your spare time? You can't spend all of it planning how to defeat Voldemort.'
She shrugged, though grateful for the subject change. 'Talk to my friends, read books… plan for the DA, which is probably part of defeating Voldemort.' There was a short silence as both remembered how Draco had proved almost disastrous to the DA last year, but then again, that had been the Fallen-minded Draco, and this was the human one.
Hermione broke the silence, trying to add a note of humour. 'What do the Slytherins do? Torture animals, hold Bacchic orgies – or is there a Young Death Eater's club?'
He smiled, which made her feel better. 'Talk to our friends, read books… no orgies, sadly, and animal torture is too messy. We do occasionally plan world domination…'
He grinned at her, and she smiled back, and they went on to discuss more trivial things.
The Room of Requirement was fuller than he'd ever seen it.
It seemed like half of Hogwarts was here, gathered around in little groups by house and age, chattering to each other casually while keeping their eyes on him, on Harry Potter. He was meant to teach this many? Last time had been alright, when it was mainly people he knew or had at least heard of, and a manageable number. There was twice that number now, and most of the newcomers he didn't know at all.
'Do you think that'll be everyone?' Ron asked from his left. 'There's loads of them…'
'Quite a lot are in the first three years,' Hermione remarked, 'they won't all be in one class… and it should be everyone.' Pulling her wand from her pocket, she pointed it at her throat and muttered, 'Sonorus!'
The room quietened quickly at the sound of her magically amplified voice. 'Could I have your attention… Thank you. Welcome to the meeting, and thanks for coming. The first thing we need to do is get a list of everyone who's intending to join, and what times they can come to meetings. I've prepared some lists,' she said, holding up some rolls of parchment with tables drawn on them, 'so if you'd pass them around, write your name on the left, and tick the boxes of the times you can come…'
The noise level rose again as Hermione passed the parchment to the nearest people, who drew out quills and ink and set about writing in their details. With a whispered, 'Quietus,' Hermione's voice was back to normal, and she turned back to her friends with a smile.
'That shouldn't take too long,' she said. 'Harry? Are you going to be ready to talk to them?'
He nodded. The prospect of so many people was daunting, but it felt natural, and he could already imagine the kinds of things he wanted to teach, how he'd explain things to everyone…
'There's tons of Ravenclaws,' Ron was saying beside him, 'as many as there are Gryffindors, I think. And plenty of Hufflepuffs too…'
'Some Slytherins.' Harry finished, and Ron frowned.
'I didn't think any would come…'
Hermione, who was busily watching the progression of the signing-up parchments around the room, remarked, 'There's some over there… and there, too.'
There were indeed two small groups of Slytherins, and Harry spotted another group in a corner; two who looked like first or second years, a slender girl with dishwater-blonde hair and a darker-haired girl with a firm tilt to her lips that seemed at once amused and disapproving.
As he watched, a Hufflepuff handed them the parchment, which the blonde girl took with a smile and a thank-you.
Ron distracted him again. 'You don't think the Slytherins are here to spy on us, do you?'
'Give them a chance, Ron…' Hermione said distractedly, paying more attention to the circling parchments than to the red-haired Weasley. 'That girl, over there… the blonde one sitting next to the brunette, just passed the parchment on. Isn't she the Muggleborn? Ellen Meyers, I think…'
Ron nodded. 'Yeah, that's her. Hey, do the Slytherins know who's come? They won't be best pleased to see her here…'
'They don't like her anyway. She can't really do much to make them hate her more…'
Harry glanced sideways, to where his friend was watching the Slytherin with a frown. 'Just because of her blood?'
Hermione gave a curt nod and seemed to be deliberating whether to tell them something. Finally, she said, 'A few nights ago some of them attacked her in the Slytherin common room. Full view of everyone in there…'
'What?' Ron seemed outraged; Harry could find nothing more than an cold dread inside him, that hung heavy and leaden over his heart. Unconsciously, he'd expected as much. 'But… and they just sat and let it happen?' Ron asked.
Hermione paused, then replied very carefully, 'Malfoy stopped them.'
Ron was speechless.
'Draco Malfoy? Of the amazing-bouncing-ferret incident?' Harry asked, and Hermione nodded. Harry hadn't expected that, but it cheered him rather. 'Well, if he can change, so can anyone…'
Hermione nodded, then frowned, seeming very distant for a moment. 'Yeah,' she said. 'Anyone.'
A/N: The Blasting Curse was mentioned on one of the Famous Witches and Wizards cards that you can get (though I found it on the HP Lexicon). I invented the incantation, however: 'Discutio' means 'I blast'.
While it's not Latin, I should note that Hagalaz is a real rune in the Elder Futhark 'alphabet'. The word 'Aett' which is mentioned at the beginning of Draco's essay refers to the families, or groups, which the Elder Futhark is divided into. I've been doing research!
And that, I think, is that. No more for three weeks! It's going to be very odd not writing it constantly… but don't worry, you'll have Cursed starting next Friday to keep you going!
Now, review, or my baby niece will cry. You don't want the baby to cry, do you? Think of the poor baby…