1Disclaimer: OK, you really should know by now that nothing but Bryn belongs to me.
Chapter 9 - New Questions and Unwanted Confirmations: Ambryn was relieved after the meeting with her friends, and soon the odd intensity that her classmates had seen faded. She had decided just to go with the flow and see what happened. Ailin was right; she needed more information before she could figure out anything.
It was this need for information that caused Bryn to be found in the Hogwarts library one Saturday morning. She was looking through the old lists of students who had attended Hogwarts in the 1970's - she knew that the seventies had been when her mom went to school. Slowly, Bryn scanned the lists for the name Julia Sayre, but she found no record of her mother. It made no sense...
"Bryn?" said a voice. She leapt up and spun around to see Harry standing there. "What are you looking up?" he went on. She shrugged. "You'll think I'm crazy, but I was looking for my mom. I'm trying to figure out who she went to school with." Harry frowned. "Why?" he wanted to know.
Bryn sighed. She hadn't told her new friends about the mysteries in her past, but now it seemed she had no choice. "Well," she began, "I'm trying to figure out who my dad is - or was. Mom never told me, and I don't know why. The problem is, I can't find her name anywhere."
"Maybe it's because you don't know her maiden name," Harry suggested. Bryn shook her head. "I thought of that, but I know she graduated in the seventies and that she met my dad at school, and the only Sayres that attended Hogwarts during that time were girls. None of them was named Julia."
Harry shook his head. "I can't help you. I'd ask Hermione if I were you; she knows the library like the back of her hand and she should be able to help you find anything on former Hogwarts students that you could want." Ambryn smiled slightly. "Maybe I will ask her," she replied. "So, what are you doing here, Mr. Potter?"
Harry laughed. "Oh, nothing much," he told her. No way am I going to admit that I was looking for her, he thought. "Just wandering around. Ron's off trying to catch Ginny with Dean and Hermione's studying for Snape's test next week." Bryn snickered. She thought Ron's attitude towards Ginny having a boyfriend was ridiculous and Hermione's obsession with school insane. Sitting back down, she tipped the chair onto its back legs and gestured for Harry to sit with her. He did so, taking a seat across from her.
"Careful you don't fall," he teased her. She smirked at him. "Worried about me?" she scoffed. He shrugged. In truth, Harry was becoming increasingly unsettled. Something about Bryn's cocky mood seemed oddly familiar, though he couldn't ever remember her acting like this before. She banged the chair's front legs down so hard Harry jumped and Madam Pince glared at her.
The teenagers left the library soon after. They walked aimlessly down the corridors, at a loss as to what to do. Bryn had just suggested they go outside when a Ravenclaw girl came up to them and handed Harry a small scroll. "Thanks," Harry called after her as she took off. "What's that about?" Bryn asked. "Oh, nothing," Harry told her. "It's just a note about these special lessons I get sometimes. Not important." Bryn wanted to press the point, but, remembering how Harry never pressed her about where she went every Saturday evening, she said nothing. Still, she put the incident into the back of her mind, along with everything else she wanted to figure out.
That night, as Bryn walked to her Necromancy lesson, she heard an odd discussion coming from a room at the end of the corridor. Quickly she pulled a necklace out of her pocket. This was no ordinary necklace. It made the wearer unnoticeable; that is, anyone who saw her either didn't notice her or forgot her the instant they did register her. With her necklace on, she walked over to eavesdrop.
"I don't care how you feel about it, you idiot! You're doing it, and that's final." The voice belonged to Draco Malfoy, a Slytherin 6th year who hated Bryn's friends. He wasn't too fond of her either, especially considering that Bryn's former arch-enemy, Caryn Altari, was his cousin. Caryn's mother was the younger sister of Malfoy's dad, and she had been married off to an American pureblood millionaire, Jacen Altari. But who was Malfoy talking to? She didn't know, and she was almost late for her lesson, so she hurried off.
That night, Morta continued her lessons on astral projection. It was a very difficult task, because it involved the soul leaving the body, and if anything happened to either the soul or the body while someone did it, he or she would be thrown into the Abyss. That night, Bryn left her body for the first time. She only hovered above her body, and that only for a few minutes, but Morta considered it a huge success. "I'm very impressed," she said when Bryn came back. "I think that's all for tonight. You can go." Bryn hesitated. "Um," she said, "I was wondering... What does the Abyss look like?" Morta looked at her sharply. "Why?" she wanted to know. Bryn shrugged. "Just wondering." Morta sighed. "According to all accounts, the Abyss is a place of dense gray fog, so thick you can see nothing. The people in there you hear as odd whispers." Bryn thanked her teacher and left, her heart sinking. So she was right about this man who wanted her help being trapped in the Abyss. That's convenient, she thought bitterly.
A/N: Yeah, I know, this chapter was almost pointless. I just wanted you to get some idea of Bryn and Harry and their blossoming... well, you'll just have to wait and see where that goes. Also, I wanted to add some HBP stuff and confirm Bryn's suspicions about the Abyss and the connection to her dreams. Oh, and somebody said that it was weird how Bryn's friends came to the right conclusion about the man in the bookstore. Well, the one who guessed that was Sarai, and she's not that logical. You have to admit, to guess the truth was quite a leap of logic and almost completely unfounded, and the character of Sarai is just the type to guess something like that.