The

R A P U N Z E L

C O M P L E X

- Saeriel -

- Dim Aldebaran -

Chapter Four

Nix and Nox

"It is better to be governed well by sinners than to be misgoverned by saints."

Michael Lind

It had been so innocent, in a way—but even as she dismounted and saw the darkness in the unicorn's eyes, she felt a deep welling of shame that made her eyes water, as if cutting onions.

The unicorn gazed into her, as if wondering what it had done was right; the tears spilled over Hermione's cheeks. She had never cried much, especially in the past few months, but these she couldn't hold back. It was as if there was another Hermione, another soul within her, so full of sorrow and regret that it was all it could do, to surface when despair drew it out of her like silver wire.

She scarce noticed as the unicorn's head dipped forward, drawing its horn across her arm, for all she could feel were the tears on her cheeks, a painless sort of regret.

The unicorn walked away like autumn rain, so quiet, so calm. To find some sacred pool, to cleanse itself of me and my filth? she wondered, or escaping, in fear of what I may yet do?

She looked down at her arm; the unicorn's mark was as a silver lattice, superimposed over the periwinkle of her veins and the sallow white of her arms. She had the unicorn's grace, but not its favor, not its heart—

But she had arrived; that dream of wonder, that dream every little girl has as they lay in their beds, thinking of Prince Charming and fairy friends and diamonds, riding the unicorn… it was over. Indeed, it was as if she had slept, for now, awake, she felt purpose seeping through her veins from the regretful soul.

There was nothing discernibly different about the current scenery, which was as purposefully dark and dismal as the Forbidden Forest's fringes. The trees were simple bastions, unassuming, and in their humbleness mightier than even Hogwart's towers, soaring into the emerald-dark canopy. The ground was beaten earth, a sure sign of nearby gatherings, though there was no direction to it, no path to follow.

She peered closer into the gloom, and it was not all dark; magic was a sparkling haze in her mind's eye, so very unlike the brilliant stars of the Hogwarts library: this was a fog, continuous, rich, so thick she took it in with every breath. Every disturbance—her and her artificial magic, the unicorn and its soaring pureness, even the cry of a kittyhawk as it swooped down and took a life—sent ripples through it that made her wand resonate. Touching it, she could feel it vibrating gently beneath her fingers, like a cat's throat as it purred. The magic of the forest was not at all a precise thing—which is ironic, she mused, considering this mission is perhaps the most ambiguous thing I have ever ventured since the Yule Ball.

Yes, Viktor was very ambiguous… I had no mission, only my own curiosity.

But I'm still curious, aren't I?

She brushed the thought away; such carnal things didn't belong in this forest.

Closing her eyes, she tried to sense the magic, sense where it was strongest; wherever the battle was fought, it must now be a place of great magic, where the greatest of the centaur-kings had fought and died. Slowly, she dipped her mind into the haze, slipping into it like warm waters in the Caribbean, with a soft breeze above and blue sea below—

She smiled to herself, and began walking through the saturated air. If a spell is cast in a forest and nobody's there, is it still magic?

Suddenly, she stood still, still as the moon as the lycanthropes cry out their despair on a winter night, breathing in the æther as it infused her soul with a terrible loneliness.

If a spell is cast in a forest and the caster dies, is it still magic?

Silence—the sea as the sun is cast down for that final time, so still, so very still as the world begins to die.

What about the caster—

Does anyone care?

She knew the sound of thunder; but this was not thunder, their approach, rather, a rain, pattering down in a collective torrent as the storm neared. The rain drenched her in the sound, half-drowning, even, for she could not find herself and take a breath of humanity.

From the shadows, lightning, now, forking out and around her in a burst of dun. Her growing migraine struggled to pound in rhythm, but could not, for the hooves did not land in unison, or even in semblance of a pattern. The resulting headache was something akin to medley, with gut-wrenching turns of key and tempo, pounding, pounding, pounding.

The centaurs circled round her, and stilled as an eye of a hurricane; but the walls loomed in the distant, for their eyes were black with viewed blasphemy, and their hooves fidgeted, as if yearning for soft flesh beneath them.

They're guards, she realized, guards of the centaur-king's body.

…they don't want a human here, no, they don't want my filthy human hands touching what is most sacred.

One came forward; a memory tugged at her, the way a child might pull at her mother's skirt when the bogeyman neared; similar centaur, similar attitude, so long ago... "Who are you, human?"

Hostility was only expected, but the sort of eloquence that could save her needed rehearsal. What could she say to turn their minds, what could she say to sway their hearts? "A pilgrim," she said at last.

"A pilgrim?" His laugh was high and harsh, like a raven's, as it watched the bear die below and clacked its beak in anticipation of warm flesh.

She waited for the echoes to dissipate, taking her time. If she spoke quickly, he'd find a fight and she'd lose; but through careful words and a careful war, perhaps she might survive. "Here, there is no War: I come to learn."

He pounded a hoof angrily on the ground. "Learn? Learn? Go to your books: do not come to witness what you will not understand."

She held out her palms, face-up; a universal symbol of peace, even across species. "One can only try."

The centaur reared up; his hooves gleamed oddly in the gloom, like crippled stars. "Spare us, human. We do not want your kind here. Have your War. We do not care."

The wills of the others were connected to him, and as he drew closer so did they: and how those hooves glimmered, like old katanas, too long on the mantel but still shining beneath the tarnish, still had that sanguine edge—

The Dark Lord tempts them, she thought, drawing back her sleeve and baring the unicorn's mark, and so must I.

"It's false!" he cried, recoiling in surprise. "A false mark!"

The mark glinted like the white of a winter moon, cold and distant and so very austere.

She let her sleeve fall back down. "Are you suggesting coercion?"

Perhaps it was a rather antagonistic tactic; but effective nonetheless. He was driven to a fatal outburst: "You—you—"

"I did what, exactly?" She raked her eyes over the others in the patrol, tearing their attention to her; they now bled shame, for they averted their eyes even as they listened. The unicorn, she knew, was worshipped as a small god amongst them, for they had cleared a path before it before; the mark had seemed an expression of pure grace and acceptance. Though she didn't know of its true significance among them, she had hazarded a guess, and she was mercifully right. "A unicorn brought me here; my intentions are honorable."

Victory in a single action and few words; he backed down and gestured in the glade's direction.

She could help but feel a sunburst of pride, and had no reason to restrain it. Her solution had been elegant, logical, taking a source of reverence and putting it on her sound. Perhaps it had been coercion, of sort—but they didn't need to know of that dark look in clear eyes, the shame that welled up at even the thought, like bile, bitter and biting—

As the centaur-guards dissipated into the shadows, she drew her robes closer around her. It have been the only way past them, but even now she thought of other words, other ways to prevent that terrible fallacy of the shadowed truth—

She walked a corridor of malachite shadows, between the trees, silent guards. Before her was a greater glade, filled with the thick gloom of the forest—but also with centaurs, which swirled in dun with the darkness.

The centaurs stood, silent, still. There were hundreds, at the least; from Britain alone or around the world, representatives only or every sympathetic pilgrim, she could not tell. She was near the back of the great mass, where the indefinite boundary of the clearing stretched.

They spoke an older, Gaelic tongue, whispers between themselves as they awaited some holy moment. She could understand the gist of it from her studies, but the subtleties were drowned in the intricate whispers and a tide of breathing, stretching out in a silence not meant for curious minds.

The rush of it all surprised her: one moment, a rage against the blasphemy of humans, the next, pilgrims. Were words to be spoken here in remembrance of their fallen king, were rites to be performed over the bones of Lord Chiron? She knew so little, she felt weak, like a child, the child she had sworn never to be again.

Lupin had been vague on the methodology, deliberately so: was she to put on a display of power, or win them with words? Befriend the best of them, the chieftains, or find a voice in the silent majority?

If this was her test into something beyond decrypting, was it to become an agent, an unofficial Auror? Was she to join Lupin as he traveled into forests of night to sway his werewolf kin; to lurk in the bars like Tonks, gathering information even as she gathered men into her arms? Or was she to be more belligerent, a full predator, stalking the prey with Mad-Eye, watching them from afar until they could go in for the kill?

She would be able to hunt.

Decrypting, it had been nothing more than picking the bones! Merlin, she would be able to run, to hunt, she would be free!

I will be a wolf, a wolf like Artemis.

Artemis is a wolf.

Will I hunt him, will I be the one to bring him down, will I be the one to see him bleed?

…or are they hunting me now, is that why the Pensieve was left; to weaken the prey so in the hunt, it might not even struggle as the teeth sink in—

Her thoughts turned as the centaurs became silent, expectant, like a father in the maternity ward, head in his hands.

They crowded about in a silent sort of mob, more frustrating than the rush and tangle of Hogwarts hallways between classes, or the mad spin of a carnival crowd. She could not brush them aside, she could not move past; nor could she see over them with any amount of ease.

It was more frustrating than anything else indeed! For something was happening, something that froze them like the silence of a winter solstice night. What, exactly, she could not say, for there was no sound, no assurances for her mind, which spun like a mad dreidal on the holy Hanukkah eve.

While helping Harry prepare for third challenge of the Triwizard Cup, she had come across a useful spell; though it was not so much a spell as a mental discipline. It, in essence, was a 'zoom' feature for the eye; though she wouldn't be able to see something, say, a hundred meters away, it was useful for seeing around corners and such. It took no incantation or wand-waving; in fact, there was a minimal amount of magic involved, so it was almost undetectable, even by the magic-sensing. Though Harry had never quite gotten the hang of it, she found it had occasional uses.

Superimposed on her current view was another image, focusing at the center of it all: there was a blank space in the world where the grasses swirled round in emerald shadows and the trees did not dare veil the stars, about five meters wide at the center of the depression.

She looked for magic there: though nothing was happening! No surge in magic as he rose from the grave, not even the minutest of novas in her mind's eye! And yet, still, they waited, waited, waited, as all their eyes settled in the quiet certainty of the faithful—

An apparition faded into view—and of a curious sort, less substantial than the Hogwarts breed. Had she believed in souls, she could have argued it was because centaur souls were lesser for being only part-human. Indeed, there was scarce enough definition to the ghost to tell his features: he had no crown, no symbol of his status. In death, all his nobility had been stripped from him, and nothing could distinguish him from the basest. His eyes, like watered milk given to the pauper's child, swept over the crowd. His mouth moved but made no sound, a marionette with crippled strings, manipulated in vain from beyond the veil. His hooves sank into the ground even as he evanesced, as if in quicksand.

Perhaps, in earlier centuries, he had spoken to them, words of wisdom and judgment that rang clear like clarion bells on Christmas day, but now, two-thousand years after his death, he could not sustain his spirit flesh even on his deathday, he could not stand, could not speak, could not even raise his hand—

As he sunk away into the loam, there was a collective silence peculiar to holy sights: the nearest approximation was church, though there, there were always those who laughed and whispered in the pews, the babies crying, the weak coughs of the elderly.

"He is not dead," spoke a voice of silk and silver, "if you believe."

What—?

She turned her mind's eye across the glade, through and through the ranks of dun, but could not find the source of the voice, which now echoed like a hollow drum with the cadence of rebellion.

Murmured exclamations rippled through the glade as chords on a harp in response, sweeping out and stilling the silence to a magnificent question mark.

"Lord Chiron," spoke red velvet and rich alto, "he does not have to be but an apparition."

Who—

That voice, that sound of sterling-and-sapphire, starlings at dusk, that voice that seduced the snake—

It resonated, and a thought came to her: A wolf—a wolf named Artemis.

I have to find a wolf named Artemis—

—and I have found him.

Artemis, lover of the Dark Lord, the pet of the gods, Ganymede.

—no, captive for his abilities, Artemis, you are not evil—

—why, why do you do this—?

"Lord Chiron," the voice spoke, striking the very heartstrings of the centaurs like a dulcimer, for their yearning for their dead king had pulled their souls taut with grief, "he may once more walk beneath these shadowed eves."

She found him now in her mind's eye: he stood, a sliver of black against the green-gray gloom. His skin stood out, moon-pale against the eve. And even so!—he walked on air as if it were even ground, pacing to and fro.

"He is not,"—like fire and water, like sun and stars, like life and death—"for those who follow me."

Artemis was before her, Artemis, this young god in all his glory, and all she could do was watch as he raised his wand—

It was not a spell as she knew it: she saw nothing. The centaurs, though, must have seen some magic she could not, for many whickered their unease, and all watched Lord Chiron as he fell down further into the ground, invisible but for his silhouette, like a tracing of Sagittarius.

There was the silence between the stars, between the moments of anticipation and consummation. She held her breath with the rest of them, drawn in by the same net of that fiercely beautiful fisherman.

Crowds do not move as one: they ripple, relativity, reactions spreading outward in ever-widening circles. The whispers reached her in a wave of wonder; and she could not believe.

But—

No, it has to be necromancy, Artemis the Wolf, he has done this, he has brought the dead to life—

But even Voldemort could not raise the dead, and we know he has tried…

…and Artemis can?

It must be an illusion, it must be, it cannot be, it cannot be—

No one can bring back the dead, no one can pass the veil—

Even wolves must resort to the basest tricks, now and then—

—even Artemis, this young god?

She turned her mind's eye; 'Lord Chiron', as Artemis called him, stood as he had not in two-thousand years. He was a fine shade of brown-black in his equine part, and his human body was lithe and lean. His face was as strong as an aristocrat's, knowing his way; and fine as a bard's, the dreamer, watching the world with hooded eyes. Dark-dusk he was, from his black hair swept back into a leather thong, and eyes, dark like the forest's heart.

The centaurs stilled again, outwards, until all was silent.

Artemis stood as a god-king, lucid, emanating not an hazy aura but light like that from a newborn star, from the ashes of old, so bright the thought itself blinded her.

Artemis—

You bring the dead to life—

—and I, who lives, to sort of death?

Merlin! how can this world be so cruel?

Lord Chiron spoke: but she could scarce pull away from that star, pacing the shattered air as if the world was his—and, indeed, it could so easily be so. "Am I such a soul, to be from the dust returned, only to be such—" pause, eye of the hurricane "—a god?"

Artemis came down, falling to a kneeled bow before Lord Chiron; his robes fell around him like curtains of night. He spoke no words; his head was bowed, and his victory was thus a proud moment for a proud man humbled.

Both of them knew the art of the spoken word. Much of Lord Chiron's glory had come from his voice, which, though gentle, could bring fire to the soul. He spoke not to Artemis, but to the ground, though he faced the bowed man as if a king, chiding a servent. "And you have done this deed? You risked damnation by your deeds, for the goodwill of a sorry race? It is blasphemy in your world to raise the grateful dead; yet that you do, and at mere whim?"

From some invisible cue, Artemis stood and met the eyes of the centaur-prophet. "Baldir was lost for lack of tears; yet you were taken unfairly, while all the world wept. I give you the choice you never had."

"You make the choice for me. Can I take my life when it was stolen in greed and returned in hope?" Lord Chiron's eyes swept over Artemis, a blur before him on the ground, white and black. How the centaurs turned to him, how they waited for his word! She had never seen how one man could stir a heart by word alone except Dumbledore; but he was a poor example, for there were always exceptions, those who thought him a fool… this was so complete, it took her as well. "You have done right, child, but O! it is so wrong."

Artemis stood, head still inclined. Still, he said no words; but she knew there were no words for him to say.

It was all a jumble, now; Artemis had it all planned out, and it had executed perfectly, and Lord Chiron had taken but a moment of their time. She had been swept along with these grand events, even kneeling with all the centaurs as the chieftains came forward to speak to Lord Chiron with quiet words. The crowd was now a press, crushing forward to see their god-king.

Necromancy—if Lord Chiron was not, in fact, an illusion—was highly illegal in the Wizarding world. Even forcing souls from beyond the veil was illegal; but to coax them into a body, and to make that body as young as the dawn… Even Death Eaters, she imagined, would have trouble with such actions, as incredible (and unbelievable, she admitted) as they were.

Yet the centaurs took it in stride, never taking action against Artemis' words even as he declared his purpose. The thought was inevitable: was necromancy practiced and accepted amongst centaurs? Bringing back the dead could not be possible, or else they would have raised Lord Chiron centuries ago; but perhaps talk of it, and smaller variations, with animals, or talking to shades, was commonplace. They had magic of their own, she could see it in the thick haze of magic around them, different, wilder than hers, but no less potent.

Now, swept out in the tide, what could she grasp as she was washed out to sea? Her test stood before her, and the question was bold; answers now ran through her head:

Lord Chiron could not be touched. The means were sanctioned by the outcome, so necromancy could not be put into question, even if… questionable amongst centaurs. The bearer, perhaps, the tempter?—but Artemis was as young as her, and he knew the words, he knew the way to speak to them, exacting to etiquette codes she'd never know. They'd love him, even if he was human: reverence followed the man who stole its heart.

But she could not lose this! Once they lost the centaurs, they lost the Forbidden Forest. Centaurs were sentient, they could raid, they could plan, they could guide… they were the only ones who truly knew what monsters lay within the forest's depths. To think of how they could be harnessed, how they could turn from a protective moat to a ring of spears, closing ever-inward around Hogwarts…

The tide swelled; and she was deposited on the rim of the centaur-sea, clinging to the barren island of Lord Chiron and Artemis.

They looked, in truth, no different in person; but both she had only seen before with her mind's eye, and in person they lost much of the mystery around them but gained a solidarity, substance.

She felt an odd sort of boldness take her by the gut and make her kneel. Their eyes fell on her; both, evidently, had not known of another human presence at Sanguinius. She kept her head bowed, praying for a phrase; she did not know what to say, did not know the words…

A glance must have been exchanged, questioning: "She's not mine," Artemis said; his tone was elegant, condescending, dismissive.

The voice of a wolf…

The voice of the wolf can shatter the heart if heard for too long.

Already, it presses deep, this knife of his.

"I am my own," she replied sharply, rising, "and my own I shall stay." She turned to Lord Chiron, meeting his eyes; they had the same dreamlike intensity as Dumbledore's, and she found herself meeting them with equity after a short incline of her head in greeting. "Lord Chiron."

"One of Dumbledore's," Artemis cut in; yet it was hardly an insult, not even the same dismissal as a moment ago, but mere fact.

She didn't dare direct argument, though the truth seared the air and made Lord Chiron raise a questioning brow. "I come as a pilgrim; I was curious about your teachings, but human lore was insufficient."

Lord Chiron's lips upturned, like a man smiling in his sleep. "And so you went on a pilgrimage?"

"I cared; my people didn't." She spread out her hands, palms up. "So I came. There is nowhere else." She was distancing herself from the traditional centaur view of wizards in not caring for centaur rituals; perhaps it might give her an ear, if not the heart?

Lord Chiron considered her, his eyes like a dark dream. A memory surfaced, of her, standing in Dumbledore's office, praying he did not see her half-truths, and inwardly she squirmed. The situations were too alike for her comfort.

From the corner of her eye she could see Artemis; his eyes, too, bored into hers, that spectacular shade of blue that drew her in like a well of clear water. It took all her temptation not to turn and speak to him, to say sweet nothings until he took her in his arms—

Merlin, not now!

My life is in another's hands, and all I can think about is the enemy, the wolf?

…but he has someone, he does, the Dark Lord…

"I am meeting the chieftains in a nearby glade," he said at last. "It would be my honor if you joined us."

She bowed her head to hide her tight smile. "No," she said softly. "It is mine."

When she raised her head, she remained silent, standing there and carefully avoiding Artemis' gaze; though she knew he stared at her, pondering, questioning. Does he think I'm beautiful? She wondered, and banished the thought—but more would come to take its place, and all she could think about was Artemis, Artemis the wolf, who stood behind her now like a blue-eyed demon, a product of her dreams that had escaped and become so much more.

:i:

After a time, Lord Chiron led her and Artemis away, into the ever-deepening shadows that turned black-purple with the approaching eve. She was silent, though words were exchanged between Artemis and Lord Chiron as they discussed the subtleties of centaur culture. Though she listened, she did not take part; she would look a fool, and lose her standing. Artemis had done his research; she had not.

It was how I looked at Lord Chiron, she thought, not my words. It was the way I could meet his eyes that let me join him.

It was a cruel thought; it was that she could hold a gaze and nothing more that she was allowed into this smallest of confidences. She was no wolf; she was only one for dealing with them…

Lord Chiron was a wolf; but he was so like Dumbledore, she could feel it in his steady, piercing black gaze, in his slow, elegant voice, in his careful phrasings. Would Dumbledore be remembered with such venerable feelings two-thousand years later, a lord who fell in battle and doomed the cause?—

Bad thoughts, she thought, and shivered; there was something in the air, surely, that made her think such things.

But there was nothing to say; Lord Chiron and Artemis walked a little ahead of her, murmuring amongst themselves, just quiet enough for exclusion.

There were no seats; centaurs stood, and not only did they stand but pace: the seven chieftains were not still, as human leaders during councils, but pacing, pacing like worried men or bored children. The ground was of hard stone, granite flecked with large phenocrysts, citrine crystals that winked like teasing cats underfoot, and schorl, sticking out here and there like spears, blood-covered in the shadows, and massy micas, flakes and sheets of it strewn about like window panes. The trees around were worn, gnarled, almost stones themselves in their antiquity.

At Lord Chiron's entrance, many looked in his direction; though they had none of the reverence the other centaurs reserved for the god-king. They were familiar with him: proven by Lord Chiron's acceptance of a whole-hearted embrace by a roan mare the shade of wild summer strawberries, and hair a similar hue that was long enough to cover certain... aspects.

The embrace was short; she slipped out as fast as she had entered it and turned towards Artemis, who was silent and still. For a moment, it seemed as if she was going to embrace him as well: but she fell short, clasping his hand within hers, which were pale and moonlike. "My gratitude, human."

He inclined his head; his dark hair fell forward as he did so. Hermione, ten paces away, felt the urge to brush it back from his brow. "Hecate: it is my honor."

He knows her name… she must be ancient, though her face, scarce older than twenty. Who is she, what has she done that he knows her name?

Hecate's eyes were brilliant and bright, of no particular hue; the closest approximation was gray, though it was not the dull hue of the clouds, nor the sea as all the sky wept. Hermione was struck by them; Hecate must be a beauty amongst centaurs with her vibrancy, unless their aesthetic standards were quite different. "Do you have a tongue? I did not see you with the necromancer."

"I do," Hermione replied; she was unsure of what action to take, so she stood still.

"But not a mind, evidently," Hecate continued, coming closer. "Leave. Your master calls for his dog."

Hermione's eyes darted around; the centaurs were all listening, watching.

She's testing me, Hermione realized, but is the question?

"I came on my own accord," she replied. "I am no necromancer; only a pilgrim. There were only books where I came from; I wanted more than that."

"Do you have a wand?"

Hecate's manner was curiously aggressive; meeting her eyes was like staring into a fire. "Rarely used; if magic is needed in... situations, it is obvious I have done something wrong."

Hecate spoke for them: "Do you have a lover?"

Hermione stared; then realized the question, flowering in her mind like belladonna. She bared her arm, exposing the lattice of silver, like an ore vein, on her arm. It glowed in the purple eve; it tinged Hecate's skin, already moon-pale, periwinkle, like the first of the spring flowers, still touched by winter.

Centaurs rewarded the elegant reply; her silence was met with approval.

"Very well then," Hecate said; she spread out her white arms like a mother-goddess. "You may listen to our counsel."

:i:

I was going for a grand, epic sort of feel with the whole raising-the-dead thing, but it feels like it fell short. Sorry says it's because I insisted on cutting the original down so much but… oh ARGH. This story is really frustrating.

I'll have a discussion of this on my lj which may or may not be interesting, depending on how 'in to it' you peeps are. Sorry said she might drop by too, so we'll see how that goes.

Anywho, don't expect any details on what, exactly, Artemis did for a few chapters. Which takes forever. Sorry a bazillion times over.

Thanks for reading! CC is, as always appreciated.