Title: Tangled up in Darkness
Author: Tzippi Meshugah
Summery: War changes people, in ways we never would have known. Old rivalries are put behind us as we forge new alliances. War is upon us now and Hogwarts is changing. Students that were light are going dark, arch enemies are joining together and becoming friends. Unimaginable sacrifices will be made and it all comes down to the final battle to determine who will be victorious and what the consequences of that victory will be. We are tangled up in darkness and we must escape before the light flickers out for good. Narrated by Millicent Bulstrode.
Tangled up in Darkness
Chapter 3
Rubble disappeared that summer and bonds that could not be broken began to form between Blaise, Hermione and I. She was an entirely different person, it astounded me that such a witty sarcastic individual could be hidden underneath the know-it- all exterior. She was also quite Slytherin like, sly, sneaky, observant and ambitious. Looking back on it now, it was astounding how we ever could have been enemies, we are too similar. Though, it has been said that the thing you hate about people is usually one of your characteristics. If that's the case, it is notionally possible. It seems so weird how it all started, like one of those story books that you read and say it's too surreal and would never happen and yet, things like that really do happen. People come to their senses, its human nature, and once one person has come to their senses it tends to rub off on the others. It was worth it.
As the long summer passed us by in a huff and school drew nearer she began to worry, she called it thinking, but I saw in her face it was worry. What about, I had no idea, but she often could be found sitting in the tree house gazing out at the azure sky.
"If three months ago, someone would have told me that we would be friends with Hermione know-it-all Granger, I would have put them in an insane asylum, and told them to keep off the crack. I don't know what changed…" Blaise said to me one morning as we sat by the window watching her in the tree house.
I chuckled to myself and shook my head. "I can't believe it, nor do I understand it either. It's astounding that there is such a fine line between love and hate. Two months ago she was my worst enemy, now she's like a sister to me. We may have only been friends for a month, but she's such an easy person to get along with." I chuckled again. "I wonder what's bothering her though"
"Let's go find out" he said as he put three mugs onto a tray, followed by a pot of coffee, cream, and sugar. Carefully, he carried it outside and set it down in a shady spot under a tree. He then stuck his hand into the hole in the tree and pulled out the picnic blanket we had stuck down there so many years ago. It was still wrapped in the plastic bag that we had used to protect it. Though the bag was in worse shape than we had left it in, the blanket was unharmed. I grinned at the fond memories that the old blanked brought to my mind.
"Hermione!" he called, causing her to jump out of her daydream. "We have coffee if you want to come down!" He shouted once he was sure he had gotten her attention.
In a few moments she was on the ground with us, sipping hot black coffee.
"What's bothering you?" I asked.
"Nothing" she answered quickly.
"Don't give me that, I'm a Slytherin, not a fool. I'd have to be blind and stupid to believe that one"
"Knowing you, you'll get it out of me anyway so I might as well give in willingly." She smiled at me. "I don't even know where to start." She said setting down her mug.
"The beginning might be nice, that's generally where people start. Or, theoretically, you can start at the middle and backtrack but that tends to get annoying, so I wouldn't advise it." He said looking pointedly at me. I glared at him.
"I suppose I shall start from the beginning then. We're going back to school in a few days, but what's going to happen to us? I mean, you're Slytherins, and though you might be wonderful people others will beg to differ. Harry and Ron would kill you as soon as look at you, and I'm not so sure your friends would like me much either. Is this the end of our friendship? Because if it is, I'm not going back to school, I've been friends with you for a month, but you guys mean too much to me to just have to give up."
"Never!" I said defensively. "I mean, sure we have a bit of house rivalry but you're our friend now, besides, the whole 'Let's-hate-the-Slytherin' thing is getting a bit old. My friends would like you, and we'll work on yours."
"That's exactly what I thought, but then I realized something, and I know you realize it too, but I shall point it out anyway. We're in the middle of a war,"
"No kidding? I never knew…" Blaise said sarcastically.
"- and there is no such thing as neutral." Hermione continued trying to speak over him. "You will be sucked in before the end of it, and either way you'll be fighting against friends, can I really put you through that?"
"Who's to say it will come to that?" I asked, trying to brush away the issue like I had all summer. Ignorant Venetian, that should be my motto.
"Don't be daft Millie, you know it will come to that, and when the time comes, I will not fight based on where my friend's loyalties lie, I will do it based on my own. And my loyalties are against You- Know- Who. He has massacred too many innocent people. Even if I was not the friend of a Gryffindor I would fight him." Blaise said, his deep turquoise eyes flashing. Normally he was hard to read by anybody accept for me, but for the first time his emotions were quite visible on his face. He was obviously passionate about this. I didn't blame him, I knew what Voldemort, dare I pen his name, did to his family.
"I'm still undecided" I confessed, not meeting Hermione's gaze. "There are innocent people who will be fighting against you too, their loyalties are forged because all the other houses hate them, and they want their chance of revenge and would not dream of betraying the Slytherin family. Blaise may be the first Slytherin in a family of Ravenclaws, and my mother may be a muggle, but my father is from a long line of respected Slytherins, and my loyalties are to my family first. I hope he chooses wisely, but I fear he may be driven by the hate his house rivals held for him."
"That's why I'm here, to show him that some people really do care. Even I notice the change in his attitude toward me. But that aside, I then got to thinking about what the sorting hat said back in fifth year 'We must unite inside her,' her being Hogwarts of course, 'or we'll crumble from within.' Wwhat if that was more than a warning, what if it was a prediction? " Hermione pointed out.
"The Sorting Hat is a Hat" Blaise said slowly as if he was talking to a three year old who was hard of hearing and had trouble understanding even the simplest words. "He may be able to think, but he is still a Hat"
"No way!" Hermione said stressing the surprise in her voice as if someone had just told her that Harry was dating Draco Malfoy. "All these years seeing it, and I never realized that it was a hat! Wow, I wish you had told me sooner, it would have saved me the embarrassment of feeding it bananas, I was so sure it was a monkey. Could you have been hallucinating by any chance?" I snorted. She somehow managed to keep a strait face.
"Ha ha Hermione, very funny"
"I know it was, wasn't it?"
"Hate to brake up this hysterical sarcastic fight, I'm really enjoying it, but can we get back on topic, I think Hermione was planning on going somewhere with this point." The two of them glared at me, but Hermione jumped back into her story from where she had left off.
"That's what I thought at first, a hat giving predictions, yeah right, but it's not just a hat, its Godric Gryffindor's hat, he poured his intelligence into the hat, so if he was a great seer, wouldn't the hat be able to make predictions?"
"That sounds a bit far-" I began but she cut me off. I could see the anticipation growing in her eyes.
"Far fetched, I know, but not completely." She paused for a moment. "I've never told anyone this, when I was sorted, first I almost made Ravenclaw…"
"Why doesn't that surprise me?" Blaise asked sarcastically.
"Har har, you're really witty Zabini," She said sarcastically "I wasn't finished. You're developing a nasty habit of cutting me off and jumping to conclusions. It's very unbecoming. Then it decided Ravenclaw wasn't the right place for me. I quote the hat "Slytherin would be the ideal house for you, you have ambition, and a Slytherin personality, it runs dominantly in your blood. However, Gryffindor is very similar to Slytherin in more ways than its members like to think. You will make friends with the Slytherins; no doubt that part of your fate is inevitable. You will be a very valuable asset when the time comes. Slytherin blood runs through your veins, but my mind is made up."
"That is some memory you've got yourself" Blaise said enviously. "Are you sure that's accurate?"
She blushed. "Well you'd remember it too if it replayed itself in your mind over and over for seven years. And yes, I'm positive it's accurate, it's been haunting me for seven bloody years! That's why I hated your house so much, because after finding out how people stereotyped you I did not want to make the prediction come true and become friends with you because that would mean everything else it said was true also and if I had Slytherin blood, I must be evil. Oh how wrong the logic of an eleven year old can be."
"That is some theory you've got yourself Hermione. You might actually be right." I said considering everything she had just said. It was very implausible; however, strange things often happen. "So in short you're saying that you are really a Slytherin, and we are going to ally with you and unite Hogwarts?" I asked.
"Pretty much," she said with a shrug.
"Then why couldn't you just say that in the first place? We've been sitting here for quite a while." I said crossly, I think I was sitting on the root of a tree and that was none too comfortable.
"Because then you would have asked for more details and for my proof and I would have had to backtrack, and that gets pretty annoying." She said, mimicking Blaise's expression from earlier. I grumbled incoherently under my breath in Italian. She laughed. "I know what you're saying, colorful vocabulary you've got yourself." She pointed out.
We sat in silence for some time. "We should enjoy our last days here, how about we take Hermione to visit the islands?" Blaise said breaking the quiet which was beginning to turn into an awkward silence.
"That sounds great" She gushed, jumping to her feet, knocking over her mug in the process. It hit a stone and split down the middle. "Oops!" She said touching the mug. Instantly it was whole again.
"You can do wandless magic?" I asked astounded.
"Bigger oops. Not much, just basic low energy spells. Harry and Ron were so busy with Quiddich, and Harry being so hard to talk to in the first place and Ron talking to him in all his sane moments and them ignoring me except when it suited them, I needed something to do. So I asked Dumbledore to teach me. If I want to become a curse breaker for Gringotts and the Order, among other things, I need to learn it. I figured I'd make the best of a lonely situation. Dumbledore really is fascinating."
"The Golden Trio is breaking up" I said, and then it suddenly occurred to me, "Do Harry and Ron and the rest know you're still alive?"
"Only you, Madam Pomfrey and the inner circle of the Order" She said quietly. "That's another thing I'm worried about. Until I get to Hogwarts and am under the supervision of Dumbledore I have to stay invisible, but once they find out I'm still alive I don't know what they'll do, but it won't be pretty."
"We'll stick by you, maybe not while you're being given the third degree interrogation and being hugged to death, that might make matters worse, but you can find us afterwards and we can call them gits and come up with fun ways to kill them in their sleep" Blaise assured her.
"Come on, Murano awaits us" I said dragging them into the house.
"I just got notice from Dumbledore; I'm taking an illegal portkey to Hogwarts a day early." Hermione said, holding up a piece of Parchment she had found on her bed when we returned from the islands.
"Won't you be bored there?" Blaise asked.
"With an entire library all to myself for two days, are you kidding me?"
"Sure, we can go with that. Kidding you, sounds fun."
"He said that you may accompany me if you'd like, but your friends might worry if you don't show up on the train"
"No they won't. We usually take a portkey to Hogsmeade and meet up with the train. It is far too long a distance to floo safely, and if we're taking a portkey, after first year, getting to Kings Cross Station was no longer necessary" I pointed out.
"Why do you go to Hogwarts anyway?"
"There's no wizarding school in Venice and our ancestors chose to attend Hogwarts and once we became a Hogwarts family, we stuck with it."
"So, would you like to come with me then? You should be able to get to Hogsmeade to meet the train as usual so nobody suspects anything."
"Sure!" Blaise said, jumping up and down like an excited puppy.
"Well then I suggest you pack, we're leaving early tomorrow and it's already late" She advised, her familiar bossy tone returning for a brief moment. Old habits die hard. It amazes me how Muggles can come up with such annoying phrases. I think they must get them from Daphne Greengrass, she rarely speaks, but when she does it's in riddles and phrases similar to this. I've only heard her speak normally once, and even then it might have just been a dream. Which is very likely seeing as Draco Malfoy was wearing a magenta tutu and riding a flying pig across a green sky.
Hermione and Blaise woke me up way to early the next morning. Despite the sun shining through the window, my body was sure it was the middle of the night.
"We're leaving in five minutes!" Hermione cried exasperatedly. That got me awake in a flash.
"Five minutes! Why didn't you wake me up sooner!" Blaise made a sound that was a combination of a giggle and a snort.
"We've been trying for the past 40 minutes."
"Oh, well, out of my room, I have to get ready!"
An abrupt knock on the door was heard precisely five minutes after I had been woken up. "He sure is punctual," I muttered as I opened the heavy wooden door.
The same portly gray goateed man that had accompanied Hermione here two months before stood on the doorstep. Those two months felt like all eternity, but in reality they were not very long at all.
"I hear sound echo in the emptiness," He said quietly.
"Pardon?"
"I hear a sound echo in the emptiness," He repeated.
"All around but you can't change this loneliness," Hermione replied.
"Am I missing something here?" I asked, a bewildered expression crossing my face.
"It's the code from Dumbledore, he seems to have a fascination with using Muggle songs," She said. The man nodded in agreement, whipped out his wand and proceeded to shrink our trunks down to pocket size.
"Hide them and stay close to me," He said in a gruff voice. We filed out of my house quietly and followed him. He led us through the rich part of Castello and into the poor part. Crumbling stone buildings surrounded us as we followed him through the narrow pathways. Finally we stopped in front of an abandoned theater whose name escapes me now.
"Wands out and stick close to me," He whispered.
Blaise and I exchanged nervous looks but took out our wands and followed him into the tumbledown building. The floor was coated with dust, the seats in the dilapidated theater were moth bitten and infested with rats that skirted around our feet. After checking the building twice to make sure it was as empty and desolate as it seemed, the corpulent wizard whipped a boot out of his pocket and cast a spell on it causing it to glow bright blue for a moment.
"Grab on and make sure your trunk is with you" He said. After a few moments I felt the much hated nasal jerk and we began to spin through time, or so it seemed. We landed with a thump in Dumbledore's office. The old wizard grinned at us, his blue eyes twinkling from behind his half moon spectacles.
"Welcome back to Hogwarts, where the tortured and the troubled find their own," He said winking.
The world was wreaking havoc on him, taking revenge for Goodness knows what! His vacation was the opposite of mine; he could scarcely eat and scarcely sleep. Ron was to put it bluntly, a wreck. Harry did not fare any better, in order to sleep he needed a potion, and during the day, talking to him was like talking to a bomb. One second he was sitting there like an empty shell the next he had exploded into an angry rant that sucked all the energy out of him, or he would explode into sobs that could not be halted. They could hardly wait for Hogwarts then they would at least have class work and Quiddich to keep them busy. Then again, Hogwarts without Hermione was like Pizza with no cheese, unthinkable.
The morning of September first dawned bleak and gray, it matched Ron's mood perfectly. The routine Pre- Hogwarts hustle lacked its usual spirit; everything seemed to be drained of energy and color. That suited Ron fine, even gray was beginning to be too bright for him. He boarded the train and headed for his regular compartment. He had given up his prefect badge. Without Hermione there to pester him and make him go to meetings and follow the rules, there was no point. The annoying voice in the back of his head nagged him reminding him that he and Harry had excluded Hermione a lot that past year, but each time he was reminded he told the little voice to go fuck itself and tried to focus his mind on other things. He found that he could even read Ginny's History of Magic book without falling asleep, anything was better than actually feeling his emotions.
The silence in the compartment was so thick you could cut it with a knife. Harry just stared out the window at the gray day, Ginny was brooding over something in the back corner of the compartment, and Ron lay across two seats, hoping that the rhythm of the train would lull him to sleep. The sound of Harry crying out in frustration scared Ron to death. Before you could say Boobotuber Pus, Ron's was on his feet with his wand drawn.
"It's not fair, not bloody fair! My mum died to save me so that I could save the world, and I've failed her. My family has all left me, I have but one friend left in this sea of madness. I have no will left to live and yet I have to because I still have to save the magical world. But I don't want to save anybody; they haven't saved me from depression. I fear myself more than I fear Voldemort, it's a scary thought, but it's true. Hermione just as good as died at my hands. I tried to summon up my mother's love to save the world, but I could not feel it strong enough. In the end it saved only me, I am no hero, I'm selfish. I want to end my life right now, it's too overwhelming. I see the death and I relive all the painful memories, even when I am awake they haunt me. There is no escape from the terror I have witnessed, save for death" Harry said, his voice was icy and cold, shivers ran up and down Ron's spine.
"Don't say that Harry, you know it's not your fault." He said, trying to stop his friend from speaking. Even the blind rage was better than this.
"I won't stop, because it's true and nothing you can say will change that."
"She would have wanted you to keep fighting Harry. She would have told you to stay strong. She would have something to say to calm you down! But I'm not her, and I don't think like her and I never will."
"I can barely recall her anymore. We excluded her last year, because we got bored of her and now we suffer for it. She never did anything wrong to us, but we pushed her away and she knew it. I could not look her in the eye, the hurt was there engraved clearly burning with the intensity of a white hot flame." Harry said, in the same cold voice. Ron wondered when his friend had become so poetic and eloquent when it came to speaking.
The train came to an abrupt halt, they were at Hogwarts. They were home. Ron straitened his robes and plastered a smile on his face. Once he was prepared to greet the rest of the students he stepped off the train. The eerie thestrals looked him in the eye unblinking. Hogsmeade looked like a ghost town, the students were grim and tense and very few in number as far as he could tell. Many had been pulled from the school and went into hiding out of fear that the castle would be taken. Or she will crumble from within…they feared that was its inevitable fate. They knew that house rivalry was too strong for there ever to be unity. If Voldemort ever came knocking on the castle door, the students would tear each other apart before he even had a chance to kill them. We are weak; Dumbledore is all that holds this school together.
The castle became visible, but for once Ron did not feel the familiar excitement or the raging hunger at the thought of the feast. The idea of so much food in once place nauseated him, even though he had not eaten properly in weeks. Harry did not feel a thing, his rant, although it was a colder quieter rant, had tired him out again, and the familiar zombie like face took over him as his nightmares replayed over and over again. Ron fell asleep during the sorting, and woke up as food appeared on the plates. He heaped his plate with all his favorite foods, but it did not have the heavenly taste that Hogwarts food possessed, it was cold and dry. He felt like he was swallowing the ashes from a fire that had long ago burnt out. Harry did not even notice the food. His classmates shot him sympathetic glances, but he did not see them.
"I'm sorry for your loss…" followed the gray twosome up the common room that night. Ron felt that if he heard those words again he would strangle so many people it would be considered genocide. He made a Beeline for his four poster bed and let a fitful sleep take over him. Harry climbed into his own bed but could not sleep without a dreamless sleep potion. He was too drained of energy to get out of bed. Tomorrow night he promised himself as he prepared for another night of no sleep. Hermione watched them from under the invisibility cloak; it was all she could do not to groan. Harry and Ron were still shattered and they would not take the news of her being alive as lightly as she had hoped.
Ginny Weasley was not the sort of girl who could play damsel in distress, or sit in the background and watch others do the work. She was active and a fighter, yet, nobody noticed that. She was the youngest of seven children, and the only girl. As a result of that she was babied and mothered and kept as far from harms way as was physically possible.
"Stay in bed Ginny, you look a bit under the weather." "Don't touch that Ginny; there is a slight chance you may get hurt." "We don't need your help Gin, maybe some other time." Were some of the most occurring phrases in her life.
Now they had been thrust into a war by no choice of their own and they were looking for help. She was ready and willing to give them that help. She could fight, as she had proven twice, and she could strategize. But they did not see her accomplishments and they politely, but bluntly rejected her offer. When will they realize that I'm 16 not 6? She often wondered. Probably never at the rate things were going. She was doomed to living in the shadows of siblings who fought strongly against Voldemort, siblings who took the credit for what she had done to help the cause. She was not the sort of girl who did well with being overlooked, under-appreciated and living in the shadows, so she rebelled, if you can even call it that. Most of her rebellions were somehow stopped early by one of her many mothers. The other ones went unnoticed. She craved attention and power. It was a burning desire that slowly made its way to her heart and dwelled there, waiting for its chance to jump out.
a/n Another chapter down! I just though I should mention that the song excerpt from the beginning of the chapter foreshadows the rest of the chapter, and if you don't understand how, feel free to tell me in your review and I will explain it in the authors note in my next chapter.
Chaste-aeon- I've bought you an entire pack of chips ahoy! Creamwitches. Enjoy them, seeing as there are no other reviewers, you don't have to share them. The "You your" thing was a mistake, I'll fix that when I get around to it. I'm glad you like my story. I'm hesitant at writing romance because it will take away from the point of the story, but there will be a little bit of romance (a little bit being the operative words). I happen not to like Harry and Ron, and it gives me great pleasure to make Harry angsty (which is not actually a word) while still being able to justify it, and both of them are always idiots, so that's not even OOC as far as I can tell based on how I perceive them.