"If dreams are like movies, then memories are films about ghosts."
Films About GhostsChapter 18: Malfoy
Ariane and Percy discreetly separated themselves from the wet, cold troop that marched towards the Burrow.
"Won't they notice you're gone?" Percy asked as they scrambled down a snow bank.
"Not with fifty other people in there," Ariane replied, "Everyone will just assume that I'm somewhere they're not." She fished in her pockets, found a hair elastic, and pulled her heavy, wet hair into a clumsy ponytail. Though this was meant to get her sopping hair off her neck, all it did was create a steady, more concentrated, drip of water down her back. Ariane decided to let it drip. "So," she began, "how did you get off work?"
"Admitted that for once I wanted to take more than a day off for Christmas," Percy told her with a small smile. "They let me go because I've got enough built-up vacation days to take most of next year off." He took off his glasses to wipe the snowball residue off them and nearly tripped over a half-buried log. "Bloody hell," he swore, jamming his glasses back onto his nose. "I hate these things."
"What are they for? Up close or far away?" Ariane asked curiously. She knew through experience that Harry couldn't see anything clearly that was more than five feet away without his glasses on, because as a revenge, when he'd accused her of fancying Draco Malfoy in October, she'd hidden them. Though Harry'd gotten his revenge later (he'd made everything she ate taste like grapefruit, which she couldn't stand), it was interesting to watch him look for everything with his fingertips for a few hours.
"Up close. I'm far-sighted, so I without them everything that's not a quarter-mile away is blurry."
"Should I stand farther away while you clean your glasses, then?"
"Ha ha," Percy laughed drolly. "Just stop me from tripping over anything. My foot feels like it's broken." He pulled off his half-cleaned glasses again and bunched up the bottom of his overcoat to wipe off the other lens. Almost at once another buried obstacle loomed, this one apparently an old car tire.
"Percy, watch out!" Ariane seized his arm and pulled him out of the way.
"Thanks," he told her, once he'd replaced his glasses and regained his balance. "I don't think I've heard you say my name before."
Ariane peered at him, confused. "What? Well, I only met you yesterday. I didn't want to frighten you off by saying your name nine times a minute," she laughed, pulling her ponytail over her shoulder and wringing it out. Her hands were bright white with cold, and she quickly buried them in the sleeves of her sweater.
They walked in silence for a few more minutes, hearing only the crunch of their shoes in the snow and the faint noises of the Weasley house fading behind them. Ariane realized that they were on a faint pathway, pressed into the dirt by the tread of many feet, that wound down from the Burrow, around Stoatshead Hill, and over a smaller hillock to the forest that lay nearby, bare and brown. She peered ahead at the spiny trees, wondering what lived in that barren wood.
Percy took advantage of her distraction to study her face now that she had her hair pulled lumpily back. It was delicate and small-featured, except for her wide-open violet eyes that looked almost black against the bright, snowy background. Her eyebrows were thin, dark, and arching, nearly black. The lashes that curled away from her eyes were also quite dark, and they were almost extravagantly long. She had the faintest few freckles on her arched cheekbones, but her skin was enviably good otherwise. The mouth that sat so quietly now between her nose and chin was, like the rest of her features, small and thin, but when it smiled it was easily her best attribute.
"You're staring," she told him, winding a long striped scarf more tightly around her throat. Ariane favored him with that sideways grin, glancing up at him from the corners of her eyes.
"Wouldn't you if you were me?" he asked before he'd quite thought out how it sounded. Entirely too forward, that was certain. Ariane went bright pink and looked down at the snow. Percy bit his lip.
A longer silence stretched. This time it was Ariane sizing up Percy.
How much does he remember about the last time we met—when I was Salazar Slytherin's forbidden younger sister and he was called Laramy? she wondered desperately. Should I ask? Should I tell? How would I even bring that up? "Right, Percy, you might not remember this, but my older brother tried his hardest to kill you, ended up killing me instead, and then brought me back from the dead." Ariane shook her head to dispel this idiotic sentence from her brain.
But I have to tell him, don't I? Well, I will sooner or later, since if we're going to spend a lot of time together—oh, I hope we do!—he's bound to pick up a memory eventually. I'm surprised he hasn't already. Ariane bit her lip and dug a hand into her ponytail. I should tell him now, she decided.
"Are you all right?" Percy asked her, his forehead furrowing just above the nosepiece of his glasses.
"I'm okay," she shrugged, swallowed hard, and then continued, "Percy—I wasn't entirely honest with you this morning."
Percy stopped walking. "About what?" he demanded. "The prophecy?"
"No," Ariane replied defensively. "About the previous lives thing."
"What, am I not what you were expecting?" Percy challenged, looking slightly hurt.
Ariane dug both her hands into her hair and made an irritated noise halfway between a sigh and a snarl. "Percy! Listen, you've got to hear me out, beginning to end. It's only fair that you know as much about this as I do."
"I'm all ears." He made a sarcastically grand gesture for her to begin.
"God!" she snapped, stomping her foot and scattering snow. "This isn't about you. This is about me, and how indescribably screwed up my past is!" Suddenly Ariane realized what had set a burr in Percy's pants. "I'm not going to make a whole bunch of excuses and…I don't know, dump you or anything. All I want is for you to know the truth so that you don't run screaming from me."
"Oh," he said abashedly, slumping a little. "I'm sorry."
"It's all right," Ariane told him, resting her head against his shoulder. "I don't mind."
Percy sighed. "Sorry anyway. I shouldn't have flown off the handle. What do you want to tell me?" he queried, wrapping an arm around her shoulders.
Ariane drew in a deep breath and began to walk, her nervous energy playing itself out. Percy kept step with her, his arm still holding her as though he could keep her away from whatever it was that was bothering her.
"All right," she began. "Remember how I told you I remember you from a previous life?"
"Yes," Percy replied, his breath fogging in the frigid air.
"Well, it was your previous life, not mine. Wait, that was awful…er…can I just start at the beginning?" Ariane pleaded. "This is really weird and hard to explain."
Percy smiled genuinely, if a little tightly. "I've got all the rest of today…and hopefully a lot longer than that."
Ariane smiled back because he looked like he needed the reassurance, and then took another deep breath. "I was born about a thousand years ago. Actually it might be a little more, but I'm not sure. My mother and my brother and I all lived together—my dad wasn't around—until I was three or so, when the villagers burnt my mom at the stake for being a witch. Then my brother Salazar and I went north and eventually ran into three people called Godric Gryffindor, Rowena Ravenclaw, and Helga Hufflepuff." She glanced up at Percy, who was staring into the distance, frowning slightly.
"So in this previous life you were Salazar Slytherin's sister?" he asked slowly.
"It wasn't a previous life," Ariane corrected him. "When I was about fifteen I met a boy called Laramy Ferrer, and we fell in love." She told him all about Laramy, how they'd kept their love hidden from Salazar for nearly a whole year, and Salazar's rage when he found out. "Then, when I was sixteen, Salazar tried to kill Laramy."
"And he killed you," Percy finished grimly.
"You remember?" Ariane asked eagerly.
"No," he replied, pushing his glasses up his nose. "I just know that's what happened."
She sighed. "Well, he obviously felt awful about it, so he tried to bring me back to life. And it worked, but it was awfully slow. I didn't wake up until September this year."
Percy stopped walking and turned Ariane to face him. "What happened to Laramy?" he asked levelly. Ariane could tell that he was jealous of the boy she had loved, even though he was technically the same person as Percy.
Ariane told him about Rowena and Helga and how Rowena had made it so that Laramy would be reincarnated with each generation until he and Ariane found each other again. She explained that Percy probably couldn't remember the past lives because it would drive him mad. "Imagine being a little baby who knows all about life and death and everything that goes between."
She took another deep breath; this one verged on a sob. "Snape read all my memories just after I arrived, to prove that I wasn't lying," she confessed, "and it sort of opened up my mind so that I started leaking memories into other people's heads and picking up other people's memories. That's why I had to tell you, you see, in case you got a vision of the ancient past from my head or something."
"I'm sorry if none of this makes sense. Please don't think I'm weird or crazy or anything," she requested quietly, staring up the seven or so inches into his sea-green eyes. "Because I'm not crazy, honestly."
In reply he kissed her on the forehead and pulled her in to a hug that reminded Ariane of exactly how long she'd gone without letting anyone hold her—of how long she'd held back, nervous that she'd leave behind some horror that should never have left her mind. She let herself relax, and, thankfully, no memory sprang to mind to haunt them both.
Percy wasn't nervous at all—perhaps because he still didn't realize all the horrors that this frail girl held inside her silver head—only relieved that she'd finally come clean with him. He didn't doubt her honesty, only his ability to understand and match said honesty. Though he did rather hope she would warn him if something awful were about to happen with her memories.
"Weasley?"
Oh, shit.
Thanks loads, God. I never expected such a very prompt response. Although, to be fair to God, this had nothing to do with Ariane.
Yet.
Ariane twisted so that she could see who was behind Percy. He moved too, not to block her view, but to hide her from sight. To Ariane's vexation and Percy's relief, he managed both.
"Who's there?" Percy asked, pulling his wand out of its special pocket at the small of his back.
"Don't fret your freckled head, Weasley, it's only me."
Ariane frowned. She recognized that voice, the imperious tone, and the condescending words—Malfoy? She peeked around Percy's arm and saw a man who looked as though the Furies had chased him from Turkey to Spain and back again. His long blonde hair was matted and muddy, his robes were tattered and hung on him as though he'd lost a great deal of weight in a short period of time. His skin was white and cracked with cold, and his eyes, pale grey, were surrounded by a sea of red, as though every blood vessel in his eyes had burst. The evil grin on his gaunt face made Ariane want to run.
"Lucius Malfoy?" Percy asked, sounding as alarmed as Ariane at the sight of Draco's father.
"In the flesh!" he smiled almost lovingly, throwing his arms out in what could have once been a handsome theatrical gesture. Now it only made him look more insane. "And you, Percy Weasley, not a mile from the family you supposedly left forever. A strange pair we make. Or should I say trio?" He moved forward faster than Ariane thought possible and snaked out a hand.
Percy blocked him. "Stay back."
Lucius pursed his thin lips. "Chivalry is dead, Weasley. I know you've got a girl with you, and that distinctive hair could only belong to a person my son has been writing to me about." He waggled his fingers and smiled again, this time cheerfully. "Ariane, is it not?"
She froze like a rabbit when a hawk screamed. "Draco wrote you? But you were in Azkaban," she whispered.
"They still let you have your mail as long as you remember what to do with it," Lucius said dryly. Percy was still standing in front of Ariane, blocking her face from Lucius's view. "Come, boy," he demanded, sounding aggrieved, "My son described her as quite pretty, and I'd welcome the sight of anything female right now." His eyes glinted, and Ariane shivered. She was very glad she had not been walking alone—what could have happened made her feel sick to her stomach.
"I don't think that would be to my advantage," Percy replied haughtily; almost in Lucius's exact tone. Ariane nearly giggled, but the cold and the severity of their situation held her back. "What do you want, Malfoy?"
"Oh, I want a lot of things," Lucius purred. "I'd like to see Harry Potter burn, first of all. I'd like to get home; I'd like to crush that old fool Dumbledore under my foot. But right now, I want to know why you're here, Weasley."
"This is my home," Percy said stiffly, drawing himself up so that he was looking down on Lucius. "Why are you here?"
"Really? Is it?" Lucius laughed manically, his matted blonde hair falling over his face. Abruptly he stopped, straightened, reached out, and grabbed Percy's left arm—his wand arm—with one of his white, skeletal hands. "That's not what I've heard, Weasley," he breathed, drawing Percy inwards until Ariane could see Percy flinching away from Lucius's rotten breath.
"Let him go!" she squeaked, then cleared her throat and ordered, "Stop it!"
He obeyed, to her surprise, but it was only so that he could snatch at her. Ariane lunged away, but her hair betrayed her. Lucius caught the end of her ponytail and jerked it hard enough to knock her backwards into the snow. She yelled in pain and kicked out at him, but it was nearly impossible to hit someone who was behind her. Percy wasn't handicapped by this, and pointed his wand at Lucius's face.
"Let her go now."
All three of them stopped moving and looked around for the new person. Lucius found him or her first. His mad face twisted into a snarl. "You," he snapped. "Angharad—"
"Reiecto!" said Professor Connor coldly, her bronze-colored hair blowing loose around her face. Lucius flew backwards and hit a particularly solid-looking tree with a crunch. Professor Connor let him fall unconscious to the ground, looking at him the same disgusted, pitiless way she would have if he had hexed himself. She looked even thinner than the last time Ariane had seen her in class, but somehow her anger made her look almost pretty. It was weird to think of her nasty, cutting professor as pretty.
Her pale green eyes snapped to Ariane, lying in the snow, and Percy, with his wand out. "Get up," she ordered briskly, all that hidden prettiness gone. Ariane scrambled to her feet, brushing snow off her backside, while Percy kept his wand up, eyeing Professor Connor warily.
"Who are you?" he asked, obviously confused as to why this strange and bad-tempered woman was helping them.
"None of your damn business. Get out of the woods, kids," she advised dryly.
"Why?" Ariane asked curiously. The full moon was still a week away.
"Because somewhere around here is Lucius's hit man, and he'll probably kill both of you on sight. He's like that." Percy and Ariane looked back at Lucius Malfoy, who was bleeding copiously from a cut on his scalp. The way he was lying didn't look possible unless he'd broken a lot of bones. "You—Percy, is it? Put a Memory Charm on Malfoy so that he forgets about meeting you two in the woods. Make him forget me, too."
Percy gave her a suspicious look. "Why?" he asked slowly.
Professor Connor raised one eyebrow and glared a Percy for a solid minute. He didn't back down, but Ariane could tell that he was intimidated. Finally, she sighed and answered, "Because I'm supposedly working for Lucius Malfoy and it doesn't look good when your hired help snaps your spine against a tree."
Ariane digested this new information about her professor and decided it made sense, now that she'd met Lucius Malfoy. Draco's father would want someone as ruthless and smart as Professor Connor working for him. "Why can't you do it?" Ariane queried rashly.
"Stop wasting time!" she snapped, and sparks shot out of her wand. It was clear that she didn't feel bad at all for nearly breaking a man in half, so Percy did what she wanted. Ariane would have too, but luckily Professor Connor wasn't talking to her.
After Percy'd finished wiping Lucius's recent memory, Professor Connor shooed him ahead with an impatient flap of her hand. "Go back to your home, boy. I want to talk to the girl."
"I'd rather she came with me," Percy responded, looking as determined as his mother did when she was in one of her tempers. "I don't trust you."
"I don't trust you," Professor Connor shot back, "But the difference is that you are smart, and therefore you realize that you will do what I ask or I'll get you too." To finalize this decision, her hand clamped on Ariane's shoulder with the strength of steel pincers.
"Go on," Ariane encouraged him. "She's a teacher at Hogwarts. She's all right—mostly," she muttered the last under her breath.
Percy looked extremely suspicious, but he took a step away from them. "I'll wait at the edge of the wood," he threw back over his shoulder as he stalked away.
"Clever boy," Professor Connor breathed to herself. Her green gaze snapped to Ariane. "You, girl, what do you mean by wandering off in the middle of nowhere with that boy?"
"My name," Ariane said evenly, "is Ariane, and his is Percy." She objected to being referred to as 'girl' every alternate word.
"He could be styling himself Charlemagne," shot back Professor Connor, "but that doesn't make a difference in the fact that I know that he's been approached by the Death Eaters."
It was as though a freezing wind had blown across her soul. "What?" she gasped. "What do you mean?"
A twig snapped nearby. "Come on," her teacher urged, steering her out of the wood. "What I mean is, Death Eaters are selective. They know what they want in a person, ambitiousness, a lack of personal attachments, and intelligence. They see that in that b—Percy." Ariane stared at Professor Connor's pale, set face and looked for a lie. It wasn't there.
"He isn't a Death Eater, is he?"
That question felt as though the future of the world depended on it. Ariane couldn't let someone that she loved be the same sort of creature that Lucius Malfoy had become. The vision of Percy, asleep on the chair, his glasses pressed up into his forehead, mouth slightly open, flitted before her eyes. That wasn't the face of a Death Eater.
Professor Connor cleared her throat and impatiently shoved a handful of gold-brown hair behind her ear. "He isn't one, no. But you should know that the reason he came home was to prove that he would be accepted again by his family and could spy for the Dark Lord." Ariane gaped at her. "You should know this, since you're staying with the Weasleys, but they're one of the main families against the Dark Lord."
"I had a vague idea," Ariane whispered. "How can he be a spy?"
"He isn't yet," Professor Connor replied, glancing around nervously as the wood thinned. "You may have increased his chances of becoming one, though."
Ariane stopped walking. "What do you mean?" she demanded, forgetting to be quiet.
Professor Connor winced and checked over her shoulder again, then shook Ariane hard. "Shut up! I mean that horrible things happen to people who back out of becoming Death Eaters. And to their loved ones." She gave Ariane a significant look. "I'd say between Malfoy's kid and that Weasley, you've outdone yourself. Are you suicidal?"
"Not yet," Ariane grumbled to herself. "How do you know Percy's trying to become a Death Eater?" she asked at the edge of the wood, where Percy stood against a tree, looking very grumpy and suspicious. He cast a filthy look at Professor Connor, who blithely ignored it.
"I work part-time for a Death Eater, Somerled," she said flatly. "That's a pretty good source. If you can find a better one, let me know." She pushed Ariane towards Percy and stalked back into the woods. Ariane watched her go, and, soon enough, a tall, beardless man joined her. He was tall, with long gray hair tied in a horsetail. He had the same rawboned sort of build as Professor Connor, and Ariane wondered if he was her older brother or father. Or maybe he was another werewolf.
Percy fell into step beside her as they made their way back around the hill to the Burrow. "Is she always so pushy?" he asked through his teeth, barely holding back his temper.
"Mostly," Ariane said, tucking her freezing hands into her pockets. "She's also a werewolf and rather dangerous."
"Yes, I know that. I was thinking about it while you two took your time coming out of the wood, and I've seen her before."
"Have you?" Ariane asked, interested. "How?"
Percy made a face. "Last year I had to work at the Werewolf Registry," he began, "you know, to make note of the number of werewolves living in England, to note which ones have died and if there are any new ones."
"Well, of course Professor Connor would be there. I've seen her transform," she told Percy, who gave her a stern look.
"Unless you want me to die of a broken heart, please don't go anywhere near a werewolf at full moon ever again," he stated flatly, but his arm snaked around her shoulders and gave her a half-hug. "It's hard enough for me to think of the end of the holidays, when I'll have to go back to work and you'll have to go back to school, let alone you doing something half-witted and getting yourself killed."
Ariane ignored the part about being half-witted and kissed him on the cheek. "I'm not going to go anywhere," she reassured him. "Except Hogwarts."
"I don't want you to go anywhere," he replied, smiling at her so that his eyes crinkled behind his glasses. "I like you right here," he whispered, and kissed her.
Ariane was in a blissful (if entirely too cold) state until someone cleared his or her throat sharply behind then. Oh God, please don't let it be Professor Connor, Ariane prayed. Or Professor McGonagall. That would be worse.
Unfortunately, it was someone infinitely worse than Professor McGonagall and Professor Connor combined. It was Ron, and his freckled face was bright red with either anger or embarrassment. Possibly both. Ariane felt her face turning a similar shade.
"What the hell was that, Ariane?" Ron demanded. It was clear that anger was definitely trumping embarrassment for the reason he was going scarlet. He was a study of red, from the maroon sweater to the carroty hair to the magenta face. "Why were you—and him—that's disgusting," he finally spat out.
"Nobody asked you," Ariane shot back, stepping slightly away from Percy. "Why are you snooping around anyway?" She was aware that she was being a little unreasonable, but she was too embarrassed herself to stop.
Why am I embarrassed? she asked herself. I love him. Should I be afraid to let his family know that?
"You've got to be four years younger than him! And he's my brother!" Percy was going a fainter version of Ron's red, nearly masked by the rims of his glasses. Ariane knew that she must be in a full state of glowing blush by this point.
Ron was beginning to lose the powers of speech, and coughed out several disjointed sentiments: "Ridiculous—urgh—Mum'll die of shock—disgusting," he stuttered, his ears glowing so hot that it was a miracle the snow was still frozen. "Are you insane?" he asked both of them.
Oh yes, Ariane. Be afraid. Be very, very afraid.
Author's Note: Er…this is not my favorite chapter, simply because it was not only hard to write, I don't think that I have a lot to show for my hard work. Basically, I think this whole thing sucks ass, but luckily the next chapter has better things to write about in it (though I did enjoy making Ron suffer…poor Ron…his bookish brother's got a better sex life than him…ouch).
Right. Anyway, drop a review.