xx Torn Rose of Past Ages xx
vvChapter One: New Age of Darkness vv
(Li)
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, though the OCs are mine...
Summary: -AU- In a distant age where the Soulless rule and those who practice the Light and protect the Hogwarts House Heirs are hunted like Muggle animals, one House protector is sent to the past to save the life of a long-dead Ravenclaw Heiress...
The usually homey office was deserted, the feeling of warmth gone cold, darkness only disturbed in a few feet radius around the sparse candles. It had been years since anyone had come here; its original owner was in hiding, and the students now home with their parents for a never-ending summer.
The room was Hogwart's Headmaster's office, and the school had been disbanded since the attack four years ago. Half the enchanted castle was rubble, the other half somewhat intact, but crumbling. Only a few rooms protected by indestructible charms, such as the Room of Requirements --which had moved itself beside the Headmaster's old office-- remained.
Everything about the room was left intact, from the unknown objects to the empty pictures on the walls. The desk was dusty, still stacked with unfinished paperwork once done by Dumbledore himself, who now trained the last of his prized DA in a secret place not known to anyone but himself, the trusted Order, and his students.
Someone sighed, and clothes rustled as an old gargoyle made way for the only person it had seen in a long time. This someone had entered the grounds for reasons all their own, and anyone watching couldn't quite tell who -or what- this person was, seeing as the midnight sky cloak they wore obscured their figure from recognization.
"It's been quite a while," murmured a youthful female voice. Even though you could not see her face, she was obviously quite young, but her tone told of years of such comings and war-wary wisdom as she stalked purposefully up the narrow stairway. "I must visit more often."
Nodding to herself as if someone was there to see, the youth entered without knocking (who was there to call "Come in"?) and smiled under the shadowed hood. "Just as I left it. Maybe I should just move here, since the House was torn down..."
She spoke of the House in a spitefully rueful tone, glancing around as if looking for what she had come for. Her ironic smile turned into a wide grin as she saw a ragged old hat left to gatherdust on a wooden shelf across the room. Walking over with powerful strides, the youth picked up the patchwork hat gently, as if it could break at the slightest movement.
"Hello, Tathar. Did I keep you waiting too long?" she whispered, pulling her hood back to place the living hat in it's rightful position.
In the brief moment she exchanged the hood for a hat, you could have caught a glimpse of her features: cloudy molten-gold eyes, the left unseeing, stared out from under thick locks a shade lighter than her cloak. The hair was long and cut unevenly, so half her head was short, the other longer than her knees, many braids done some time ago separating the oddly cut strands. High cheek bones, a slight nose that accented half-lidded cat-like eyes; she was quite pretty, in a mysteriously mythical way.
Only one thing marred her near-perfect face: a thin, blue-colored scar above and below her unseeing left eye, looking much like face paint if it hadn't left a faint indent in her golden-pale completion.
'Not at all, my dear. Quite bored with no one to sort or sing to, though,' the Sorting Hat answered, much wanting to burst into song at that moment.
"No, no," the girl whispered chidingly, still grinning widely. "Save that for years to come. Remember anything yet, Keeper of Four House Secrets?" The last part was said in a teasing manner, seeing as the four Hogwarts founders and House namesakes had created him long ago. He knew much about them; their knowledge and power awaiting the Heirs to take. She knew this, and couldn't help but make light of his honorary position, which would have annoyed a human, but the Hat just laughed in good humor.
'I wish the olden days were back; then I wouldn't have only you to chat with. Oh, Dumbledore's mind was much fun, but First Years are even more interesting than the old coot's.' Her influence the last few years had changed her friend from the mystical Hat who sang to a magical Hat with an attitude. The old Headmaster had just laughed the last time he'd talked to the older being, but that was two or so years ago. They didn't see each other that often anymore, since the Hat could not leave this office.
"You still do not remember? Anything at all?" the youth insisted, humorous manner gone. If he didn't know, how was she supposed to change this time of Darkness? Her persistent pursuers would find the place soon, and she knew one of them could enter the office without trouble...
Her head accessory 'hmmed' in thought for a moment, then stated stallingly, 'I seem to... remember, as you say, someone one like you trying me on... What an interesting mind she had... Went by the mental name of Auctorita, much like you, Tornaroes.'
"A name of Power..." the youth murmured, as thoughtful as her Hat.
'Ai, a name of Power. Mental and physical strength, she had -too bad she was killed in her sixth year...' The headgear seemed unaware of the youth's tense body and closed mind.
A moment of uneasy silence, then:
"It was her, wasn't it?" a flat tone. She was mentally hoping the answer was 'no'. Please don't be her, the one I've searched for so long...
'Yes.'
A pause, then sigh as the youth's shoulders slumped considerably. "Should've known. And here I am, looking for the only one to help, and she's long dead..."
'Who is she, to you and the rest?' the Hat asked curiously, not able to penetrate the mental wards she'd now put in place.
"The last Heir; to Ravenclaw, the other one born in the second decade but irretrevable. Slytherin has been reborn, since the Grryffindor inheritor killed him for many a betrayal. And Hufflepuff is safely taking lessons with Madam McGonagall. Quite impressive, she as young as she is, really." The one called Tora continued to ramble on about the Three found Heirs, updating the Hat to more current events. Anything to stop them, she thought. She didn't need criticized right at this moment.
They need her... Find the lost one... They are needed... Replace the Last One...
Gah! Not again; not now! Cursing her mental barriers' failure, the youth was forced to listen to the voice preach in whispers and yells, all at the same time. She barely made out most of their words of advice and warning as pain shot through her inner plain.
You have the means... find her... the one they needed...
...the one we need...
...desperate... continue the search...
...bring her... she is needed... travel to her...
...save her...
...save them all... finish what you started... long ago...
...learn...know...grow...feel...remember...
...!FIND HER!...
The last was shouted, and unconsciously Tora had the sense to spare the now-concerned Sorting Hat the voices' speech. They kept demanding more and more; it wasn't her fault the last one, the only unable to reincarnate, was long dead and buried. She couldn't do anything; reviving the dead was a Dark Art; glanced at the old grandfather clock belonging to Dumbledore...
...and she realized, she needed to go. Quickly; the searchers would be here any minute.
Silently thanking the Hat for their chat and her inherited Foretelling powers, Tora set the ragged head cover on his dusty shelf with a final good bye, and headed towards the door. She heard the muffled sounds of footsteps and jerked back suddenly, knowing someone was climbing up the stairs, her only escape exit...
Rushing to the Hat after locking the door with a spell unable to be undone without some work, the youth slammed the unsuspecting accessory onto her head and interrupted his 'welcome back'.
'Do something! They're coming!' she demanded mentally, not sure of the extent of the powers the Hat of Four Houses held.
'Hmmm... What to do with one who cannot be placed? The makings of your mind I have never seen, Tora... Where to send you?' the Hat questioned, asking much like his old self.
To her... help her...
A voice whispered in her mind, and the director heard, smiling as much a Hat could. 'To her, then. Be wary of the evil Darkness, as you always have, and embrace the Shadows as you meant to. This time, you will have no one to help you...'
'I know,' Tora barely managed, cursing the Powers that Be for letting the Hat and voices tap into her power source. She'd be drained for weeks on end! At least she had her father'sold wand, from when they were actually necessary...
'Off you go then. This will hurt as well, I must warn you...' Like she didn't know pain. Everyone did in this Age, and Innocence was rare and protected.
'Of course. Nothing ever comes easy.'
'Except pain,' the Hat reminded, starting the transportation spell. She would appear her his mouth in another time, in a place that much needed her to save the lives of many...
Even if she didn't know her real responsibility, protecting the Heiress from death would help ease the Dark Age struggles considerably, maybe even prevent the events all together. Unbeknownced to everyone, dead and alive, their future fates were in the hands of one crazy, psycho halfbreed in need of an attitude adjustment and serious therapy. The Hat just hoped she didn't screw this up like last time...
In barged a thirty-year-old strict looking man with red hair and dull green eyes, wand drawn in a dueling possition as if he expected an attack at any moment. Scanning the room warily, Percy Weasley only saw the ragged looking Sorting Hat from his youth in the middle of the dusty floor. Nothing was disturbed; everything looked aged with cobwebs and dust littering every nook and cranny.
Muttering to himself, the man stared in disbelief. He was sure he'd seen the one he needed to capture come this way...
As the man left without even bothering to enter the room, Tathar (for that was the Hat's old name, the one given to him by a demon's daughter ages upon decades ago) laughed silently to himself, already seeing the girl's past handy work. Already the pictures were being filled by yawning paintings and the room began to glow a warm color...
Years in the Past: Headmaster's Office, August 8, 1996
Dumbledore shifted through the piles of paperwork required for the start of term, which included basic teacher lesson plans, listening to the Sorting Hat's hummed song. It was a new tune, one created by the supposedly inanimate maestro now starting to add words:
Mis-
The Hat stopped as soon as he'd started, making choking and gagging sounds unheard of for a Hat to make. A Hat had no throat, just a limitless abyss used to store things for certain people, so why did he sound as if he was choking?
Suddenly, the ragged patchwork piece of clothe vomited up a rather dazed looking witch, who reminded Dumbledore of someone -a colleague- he'd met before becoming Hogwart's Headmaster.
It hit him as suddenly as the youth had come to be on his carpeted floor. "Silvana...?" he murmured in disbelief. The one he was referring to had gone off into the Department of Mysteries (where she worked as a Level Ten Unspeakable) one day and never come back.
But when the girl raised her head to stare at him with cloudy close-to-amber eyes, he knew it wasn't his old friend. Her eyes were a startling bright blue that seemed to know one's secrets with just a glance, and she could see out of both eyes. And that scar...
It couldn't be! That practice was banished decades before his own birth, which was saying something. (Exactly how old is he, anyway? And why is he still alive, or does he just naturally have the immortality Voldie wants or something?) Besides, who would have done it, if the knowledge was so far gone?
Glancing at him with a wary right eye, the girl reached for something within the folds of her cloak. Thinking it a wand, Dumbledore drew his own and pointed it at the laying girl. He was relieved when all she held was a silken black strap of clothe to tie around her unseeing eye.
Sighing, the youth murmured to the cautions man, "I know we must talk, Lord Albus, but can it wait a few days? I need-" Without finishing her sentence, the girl fell over backwards, unconscious.
Kneeling over the young woman, he saw a crescent moon necklace made from an unimaginable stone and his eyes widened in surprise. Quoting the wand maker in thought as the man called Madam Pomfrey, 'Curious... very curious...'
Digging a metal container out of his robe pocket as Poppy took the girl away, Dumbledore now knew he needed to go Lemon Drop shopping again... And then wait for the girl to wake and ask some questions.
Simple plan in mind, the Headmaster went back to his paper work as the bell rang midday. An interesting year it would be...
A/N: This story is just for the fun of it, so don't expect any updates at regular intervals. I know I already have two other stories going, but I needed something else... unplanned...
Tell me what you think, if you want to. I don't really expect any reviews.
Li