Chapter 2: Recalled to Life

Meli took Snape's good advice and traded in Dickens for Austen at the end of Our Mutual Friend. She progressed rapidly through Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion, then, faced with the unenviable choice between Emma and Sense and Sensibility, both of which featured heroines she despised, she eventually chose the latter because it also featured a heroine she didn't mind so much.

Unfortunately, she had quite forgotten just how thoroughly one sister's stupidity overshadowed the other's intelligence.

Also unfortunately, Meli was as short on human company while reading Austen as she had been while reading Dickens, so her sanity was not much improved for the change. By the third chapter into the third Austen book, she had abandoned the practice of reading aloud to her comatose roommate and instead began a running commentary on the story, accompanied where appropriate (or not) by snorts, rolled eyes, and whacking her forehead with the book whenever someone did something particularly idiotic.

She became so thoroughly involved in her reading that she missed several subtle clues that things were changing in the real world. Sounds of quiet shifting were drowned out by an eloquent tirade against Willoughby, and slight alterations in breathing were lost amid a rant about the thick-headedness of Edward Ferrars. In fact, had a rather boring portion of narrative not happened along at precisely the right time, she might very well have missed Zarekael waking up. She had fallen silent, however, just in time for him to let out a moan of pain as he came fully awake.

Meli turned suddenly at the sound and found two eerie blue eyes staring at her in open puzzlement. She grinned, her literary insanity temporarily forgotten in her relief at his being conscious.

"Welcome back!" she said cheerily.

Zarekael furrowed his brow and looked a little worried at her hearty greeting, but he managed to approximate a smile with his eyes. "Thank you," he replied dryly. He paused, evidently coming to some sort of realization. It didn't take Meli long to figure out what it was that he'd remembered when he suddenly turned his arms inward.

The Dark Marks, she thought. Well, when in doubt, play dumb to save face. She cleared her throat. "I see you've noticed the draft," she remarked. "I'm lucky enough to be in long sleeves." She offered him half a smile. "Since Poppy so meanly deprived you of your wand, would you like me to lengthen your sleeves for you?"

Her nonchalance communicated what her words did not: a reminder that she already knew about the Marks and that they were still friends anyway. Zarekael sighed. "There is no need," he told her. "I am what I am."

Meli arched an eyebrow. "Cold?" She shrugged. "Just as well, really. With my battle damage still tweaking, I'd be more likely to accidentally lengthen something else." It belatedly occurred to her what she'd said. "Referring to your nose, of course," she amended lamely.

Zarekael managed a look of amusement. "Judging by your high spirits," he observed, "I assume we won."

"Indeed we did," Meli replied.

"How are Severus and Dumbledore?" he asked quickly, then added, almost as an afterthought, "And Harry?"

Meli smiled. "Dumbledore's fine, Harry's never been better—a little adrenaline never hurt anyone—and Severus was well enough to sneak out of the hospital wing right under Poppy's nose. Oh, and I'm dead."

He smirked, then slowly sobered. "How long have I been out?"

Meli's own smile faded. "About three days," she answered. "You were very tired."

"Better tired than dead," Zarekael said sardonically.

"No kidding," she rejoined. "Severus seems to think it's taken a toll on my sanity."

Zarekael shook his head. "So what exactly happened?" he asked.

Meli shrugged. "Damned if I know," she replied. "I can tell you why I'm dead, but I was masquerading as a corpse when the battle ended, and no one's had time to tell me about it. What I do know is that Dirk Pierce killed Collum Fell, I killed Dirk Pierce, and some bloody fool tried and failed to kill me. So to spare him the trouble of finishing the job, I stupefied myself using Collum's wand, which turned out to be broken nearly in half, which is why I'm now here, recovering in the oppressive domain of a certain overzealous mediwitch." She grinned. "I'm fine. How are you?"

Zarekael stared wonderingly at her. "If one may inquire," he said slowly, "have you been reading Dickens this whole time?"

She smirked. "I see you've noticed my stack. Yes, I have, except for when I was reading Austen." She tilted her head inquisitively. "So now you know why I'm doing time. What are you in for?"

He sighed. "I don't remember," he replied. "I was upstairs, on the ground floor…then two Death Eaters came to report…that Severus had betrayed us. He had reached Harry Potter first, then barricaded himself and Harry in the dungeons and activated a series of death traps. They hadn't told anyone else—they came to me first, expecting me to tell the Dark Lord myself."

"But you didn't, of course," Meli interposed.

"Of course not," he said. "I made a show of taking it personally and ordered them to lead the way. Once we were lost in the scuffle of the battle, I stabbed one and broke the other's neck, then went on alone."

His countenance darkened in appreciation of a peculiar irony. "As fate would have it, the one I stabbed was Peter Pettigrew. If his body was found and identified, I may very well have cleared Sirius Black."

Meli shook her head empathetically. "We all have our crosses to bear," she told him philosophically. "It's not your fault, Ruthvencairn—you couldn't have known."

He smirked, then returned to his narrative. "When I reached the part of the dungeons Severus was in, he was defending himself against several Death Eaters. I didn't see Harry—he must have been even further down."

Zarekael paused and furrowed his brow. "I remember seeing Severus take a hit and fall down…and I remember calling the wind…then nothing."

Meli arched her eyebrow, intrigued. "Calling the wind?" she echoed. "What—"

"Ah, I see you're awake, Zarekael."

Both of them looked in the direction of the voiceand foundnot only Dumbledore but also Snape standing in the doorway. Meli's pre-existing mental condition resurfaced, and she graced them with a grin worthy of the Cheshire cat.

"Isn't it wonderful?" she all but crowed. "Now I have someone to converse with! Up until now, it was just me, my book, and my murderous plot against Marianne Dashwood!"

At this extraordinary declaration, Zarekael looked confused, Dumbledore was amused, and Snape, to all appearances, simply mused. Meli, for her part, closed the accursed tome in question and tossed it in the general direction of her already-read pile. She landed a direct hit and sent the tower tumbling to scatter Jane Austen and Charles Dickens all over the floor.

"Score!" she cried, pumping a fist in the air in triumph—at least, that was the intention. Her fist pumped once, then performed a strange sort of dance that nearly put a hole in the wall, a bruise over her cheek, and a dent in the mattress.

Snape smirked. "Well, one of your is showing some improvement, at least," he remarked.

"Indeed," Zarekael replied, also smirking.

Meli folded her hands in her lap and looked to Dumbledore. "So we'd gotten to the part about 'calling the wind' but not past it," she said. "My curiosity is piqued, so I hope you don't mind my returning to the earlier subject."

Zarekael cleared his throat a bit uncertainly. "Each of the Ruling Houses is identified with one of the elements," he explained. "Dar Jerrikhan is the wind. Of the four elements, I find the wind to be most…responsive."

"Particularly when in a rage," Dumbledore added.

Meli had heard about Zarekael's strange rages, but she had never witnessed one. It seemed that when he became unusually angry, Zarekael slipped into some sort of fit that increased his physical and magical power and usually ended in some sort of violent outburst—one of his milder rages had, in fact, resulted in the telekinetic destruction of Gilderoy Lockhart's granite desk. It was said that the only sure warning of a rage was the changing of his eye color from blue to green.

She raised her eyebrows. "If it's not improper to ask," she said carefully, "were you in a rage?"

Zarekael scrounged up a shred of amusement. "Yes," he replied definitively. "Even before Severus was hit."

"It was a magical rage," Dumbledore told her. "I'm sure you sensed the draw of power?"

Realization struck as that piece fell into place. "The shifting I felt," she breathed. "It's like you were drawing from all of us…but it wasn't steady at first." She turned, wide-eyed, to face him. "Tu Quoque isn't supposed to be able to replicate a deadly curse, but it did—there was a surge just then…" She shook her head. "And then a surge the other way when that idiot tossed a Kedavra. Even if he'd hit me dead-on, I'd still be sucking air."

Snape nodded thoughtfully. "That would explain it," he murmured.

"When Severus fell," Dumbledore continued, "the next thing we knew was that a gale-force wind was sweeping through the corridors and whirling 'round Zarekael. And then came the fire—a solid wall of green fire surrounding the attacking Death Eaters."

From the look on Zarekael's face, this was as much news to him as it was to Meli.

"It was no ordinary fire, though," Snape said wryly. "It either blocked or absorbed the spells they threw at it." He shook his head. "By the end of it, the Death Eaters who weren't dead had no memory of the event, which, as you can imagine, was for the best. Zarekael collapsed, unconscious…and didn't wake up until today. The Dark Lord called a retreat, so I levitated Zarekael and led a handful of survivors away, to all appearances doing nothing more than following orders. As I was the only one who remembered what had happened, it was a simple enough matter to feign amnesia." He furrowed his brow. "And then all that remained was to withstand the Dark Lord's anger and bring Zarekael back here."

Zarekael had paled visibly during Snape's narrative. "How…how many did I kill?" he asked quietly, his voice ragged.

Snape set his jaw and looked to Dumbledore, who swallowed visibly. "About…twenty," the headmaster replied gently.

Zarekael closed his eyes and went deathly still, and Meli felt a pang at the sight. His rages obviously deprived him of the calculating control that usually governed his actions, and she imagined, not without cause, that he probably feared that such a loss of control might cause him to harm or kill someone. That would be my worst fear, she thought soberly. What do you do when you can't even remember what you've done and you know you've got blood on your hands? How can you look at yourself in the mirror when it wasn't your deliberate choice—when circumstances just take over and you're along for the ride?

It occurred to her then that that was what had happened in the confrontation with Pierce, but she wasn't yet prepared to deal with that. She had buried it in Dickens, buried it in Austen, buried it in curiosity about what else had happened in the battle, and as far as she was concerned, she'd go on burying it until the end of time.

Snape shook his head wonderingly. "Do you remember anything about what you did?" he asked.

Zarekael sighed. "I have no fucking idea what I did," he replied.

They all stared at him for a moment before Meli ventured to ask, "Did you just say 'fuck'?"

He rolled his head toward her and gave her a patient look. "Yes."

"Sweet!" she crowed with a grin. Snape snorted quietly, while Dumbledore just shook his head.

No one seemed to know quite what to say after that; silence descended over the four of them for a seemingly interminable period, until it became nearly oppressive enough for Meli to speak in spite of her better judgment. Fortunately, Dumbledore broke the silence first.

"Well, there are things that need to be seen to," he said quietly. "There will be time for us to talk further later on; for the moment, please excuse me."

Snape murmured a similar excuse, then followed Dumbledore from the room.

Once they were gone, Zarekael closed his eyes and while, judging by his breathing, he didn't fall asleep, Meli was not inclined to call his bluff. She watched him empathetically for a moment, then set her jaw and deliberately picked up Dracula.

The time for trivial stories had passed.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Special thanks to Bet for helping with the triple-mused construction in reaction to Meli's line about Marianne Dashwood. Thanks also to my former English teacher Mr. Parrott (should he ever come across this story) for unknowingly test-marketing the line about dear Marianne back in the day.
AE