A Lighter Shade of Black
Books and Mist
Ginevra opened the book and smiled at seeing words in English. No translation needed, that was always nice.
"'Seeing Without; the complete, self-updating, book to all prophecies'." she read quietly.
Welcome to the exciting world of Divination!
Gin rolled her eyes and flipped forward.
Now we will start with the 'Snake of 1926' predicted by Brun Cibil. It was a prophecy telling about the rise of a new Dark Lord, i.e. Voldemort.
She sighed and flipped forward again. Right now she didn't need to hear about Voldemort.
Pure and of the dark is she
With companions, three,
Loyal and faithful,
And she will love he
Betrayal shall befall the one caught between life and death
History joins she with nothing but the others
Feeling saves the girl of blood to the Prince
Friend of the betrayer, be captive by Corruption
The Queen sees darkness as the Prince feels evils abroad
As the end of the new moon approaches,
The past returns from the place of resting and lies...
Ginevra furrowed her brow. Why did those last two lines sound so familiar?
"It's rather late to be out in the library, Gin, don't you think?" came a soft voice from behind her.
She turned and smiled at Taylor. "Hey there, Greemhorn, what're you doing down here?"
The other girl shrugged. "Eh, I was restless; thought I'd see if you were still down here." she replied, "What's that?"
Remembering exactly what she was doing, Gin handed her friend the book. "It's a prophecy." she stated, "Do the last two lines sound familiar, or is it just me?"
She stayed silent as her friend read the page. "Betrayal shall befall the one caught between life and death... " Taylor murmured, "As the end of the new moon, approaches; the past returns from the place of resting and lies... I think this is our prophecy."
The redheaded girl just sighed and shook her head. "I really can't deal with this right now. I'm too tired."
Cole floated down the hall sadly, nibbling her bottom lip in thought. It was the first of June. About three months until the first term of her seventh year and she was dead, but not. Bloody hell.
As she entered the Great Hall, she could see her friends plopped down at the Gryffindor table.
She sighed uselessly. Gryffindor. What had she done to deserve the house? She wasn't brave; no, she'd demolished that possibility when she killed herself to be rid of Voldemort. She wasn't strong; she hadn't taken care of her own daughter when she was growing up. She wasn't courageous; she didn't go charging into battle to save her own world.
No. She was the ghost girl who killed herself and couldn't do anything right.
"'Lo all, what's up?" she said cheerily, seating herself next to Colin Creevey.
Being a ghost was strange. She couldn't touch or eat, but she could fly and walk through walls and sit down.
"Nothing much, found an interesting book stuffed with prophecies last night." Gin replied, holding it up so she could read the cover.
"'Seeing Without'," she said aloud, "Clever."
They all looked up as the morning post flew in overhead. Ginevra recognized Ron's owl, Pig, as he soared into the Hall. The once little brown owl had grow and changed a lot over the period of the last five years. He was now graceful and large, and his color had changed from dark brown to shades of amber. He really was beautiful.
"Hey Pigwidgeon." she said, plucking the crisp white envelope from his beak.
"Who's it from?" Laura asked.
A slight frown passed over her face. "My dad."
A hush fell upon the group of friends at those words; Gin had not been on good terms with her parents in quite a while, and both Molly and Arthur knew this. So why would they owl her?
Gin opened the envelope and read to herself.
Dear Ginevra,
I know that you are most likely very busy with everything going
on with Nicole, but would you at least consider coming back to
Grimmauld Place for a week? Your mother is feeling awful, says
she's only just gotten Percy back and she doesn't need to lose her
only daughter. You could bring your friends with you, but please...
Think about it.
With love,
Dad
A small, tiny, smile graced her face. So he wanted her to come to the Safe House so Mum wouldn't be so sad any longer?
"He wants me to come to the Order's safe house for a few weeks. Mum's upset about not seeing me." she said, folding the letter up and pocketing it.
"Heh." was all T.J. said.
"Yeah. So, we gonna get to work?"
There were mumbled replies to her question and Gin deducted that they would join her and Cole after breakfast.
Three days later...
"We should just do some original magic." T.J. said from her perch on the window ceil.
Three heads turned to the ebony-eyed girl. The boys had yet to rise from their beds and meet them in the library, so it was just Katie, Cole, Gin, T.J., and Laura.
"What?"
She rolled her eyes at Laura. "'Original magic; the creation of a custom spell by witches and/or wizards of power to better cure the situation of which they need the spell,'" she recited perfectly from memory, "I learned about it at the Academy."
"Well, how would we pull that off?" Laura asked, "Apparently, that kind of thing would have to have a lot of power behind it."
"Yeah, not to mention it has to be illegal." Cole added, "That doesn't bother me, but I thought I'd throw it out there."
"So how do we do it?"
And so, the three girls and the ghost began to configure chants and find out which powers to call upon. They were doing something illegal, but it was for a friend... we all know these girls can't stay out of trouble for very long.
Blaise ran a pale hand over his face as a loud thumping sounded throughout his living room. He allowed his bright blue eyes to drift over the alarm clock to his right. Six forty-five.
"Bloody hell... " he grumbled under his breath, "I'm coming, I'm coming... "
As he stumble over and opened the door, an out of breath Draco grabbed him by the collar and started dragging him over to the fireplace. "Pillock!" the young man yelled, "Hurry up, we have to go!"
Blaise, usually so knowledgable and composed, was now starting to worry. His friend was never anything near so wild and rough in his movements. He allowed the blonde to drag him to the fireplace and toss in the green powder.
As feet landed on the lush grass of the Hogwarts grounds, Tracey and Greg both knew something was extremely wrong in the place.
"C'mon, let's go." Tracey mumbled, headed straight for the front doors.
Blaise glanced around as the soot settled around them. "Draco, what's going on? Why are we at Hogwarts?"
Draco was silent, simply walking towards the pale white door of the hospital wing. Blaise followed. "Dra - "
"It's the girls," he interrupted, "They something incredibly stupid and dangerous last night... "
July 17th, 1997
Ginevra set up candles as Laura made the black-tinted sea salt circle. T.J. was still off changing out of her robes. Laura stood straight now, brushing away salt grains on her dress of chaste white.
"Done."
Gin followed her actions and tucked the matches away with the left over supplies while dusting her hands on the crimson fabric of her dress. "Ready."
Taylor appeared moments later from the other side of Green House 6 in a gown of raven.
"I guess we're all ready." she commented, voice betraying her nervousness.
Gin gingerly kneeled on the ground just outside of the circle, her skirts making a scarlet pool around her. T.J. and Laura followed the suit.
Laura grasped one of the many small candles round the three of them, allowing Nicole to step into the center of the circle, (the other two doing the same) and tipped three drops of wax into her palm.
Hissing in pain, she quickly clasped her hands with Ginevra's and Taylor's.
"Do it... Cole..." T.J. gasped out, tears coming to her eyes as the magic wax continued to sear her hands.
Nicole faced the beautiful, round moon and shut her eyes, breathing in a deep, useless breath.
"I have suffered the fate of only see, I wish for the life I had before," she began, "Grant my request now, I plea, Open the door and let me free!"
"Invoco il potere di Damia!" Ginevra exclaimed, tears streaking her cheeks as the power drained from her.
"Invoco il potere di Aradia!" Taylor followed, just as the rain began from above.
All four let out small shrieks as lightening fell down, making the earth beneath them shudder. Red smoke appeared, twisting round Nicole's hour-glass figure. Soon a black smoke joined it, twirling and crackling with magic and lightening.
"Go Laura!" Gin screamed.
"Invoco il potere di Hanna!" Laura gasped out, opening her eyes to see a white mist seep from her skin and join the rest of them in the complex dance of smoke.
"Invochiamo il potere di Zeus!"They all four exclaimed.
They all screamed in horror as a bolt of golden lightening shot down, right to the spot where Nicole was, splitting through her.
And then there was nothing...
End Chapter