Chapter 24 – Lightning Strikes

Lizzie woke the next day having missed her first class, Defense Against the Dark Arts to make matters worse, and immediately received a note from Snape with a detention from another young Slytherin student as messenger.

"I'm sorry, I couldn't wake you up..." Hermione said apologetically at lunch. "What happened last night?" She asked.

"I can't talk about it," Lizzie said dismissively, still extremely absent-minded. So absent-minded she potted her quill in Herbology and didn't realize until she had nothing to write with. Neville eyeballed her nervously.

"I know it's probably a rough day... but..." he said. She looked confused. "Halloween probably isn't your favorite holiday..." he said in response to her expression.

"Shit, oh God I forgot," she panicked, and now he looked confused. "I told Flitwick I'd sing for fall concert tonight. I don't even know what - " she said.

"You finally joined choir?" He asked excitedly.

"No, not really, he just didn't have a solo lead and told me to pick something..." she said.

"Well... pick something... sure you'll be fine," he said reassuringly.

"I haven't sung publicly in years..." she said. "I don't even know what my voice sounds like anymore," she admitted. "I meant to practice earlier but quidditch and these sessions with Dumbledore. I just lost track..." she complained, rubbing her eyes and temples anxiously.

She didn't pay the slightest bit of attention in Alchemy, but instead brainstormed songs she knew by heart and made a shortlist.

Sitting on the Dock of the Bay by Otis Redding
Hallelujah by Rufus Wainwright
Sound of Silence by Simon and Garfunkle
Landslide by Fleetwood Mac

She played through each in her head knowing she wouldn't have time to dig up records. When her last class ended, Lizzie rushed up to Gryffindor Tower to change and look semi-presentable, humming and trying to hit a pitch in the mirror. Workable, she thought.

Bryan Urquahart, captain of the Slytherin quidditch team, stopped Lizzie in the hall on her way out. "Potter," he said shortly.

"Hi, Bryan," she sighed impatiently, rotating on her heels.

"I need you to sign this," he demanded assertively, handing a form for changing the time of the quidditch match to later in the day that weekend.

"Why do you want to change it? I have recruiters coming," she asked shortly.

"My seeker is under the weather," he said.

"Your... seeker… Malfoy is under the weather? You think that matters to me? Certainly you have an alternate?" She asked indignantly.

"Look, I can go overwrite your signature with Snape's," he warned.

"No, you can overwrite it with my head of house, not yours, and you'll need to because McGonagall can tip off the recruiters. Take it to her, you can tell her I'm agreeable, but I'm not signing it I don't have time to go accommodate your seeker," Lizzie instructed. He swallowed back a twinge of pride because she took an upper hand, but nodded reluctantly and stalked off.

Lizzie wandered down into the Great Hall in a simple plain black dress, and her heart thudded behind her chest not knowing how this was going to go. The hall was decorated with floating jacolanters with candy lined centers down every table. Neville was right, she hated Halloween. Seamus gestured for her to sit with him, and she smiled weakly as she sat down.

"You look nice," he said quietly, passing her some food.

"Well I'm supposed to sing, so," she said, watching the ensemble move forward to perform what they no doubt rehearsed tirelessly. Flitwick usually followed this with a solo singer, but they'd all since graduated.

"You're singing? Really?" Seamus said excitedly. Lizzie nodded nervously.

"Yeah, don't get your hopes up, it's been a good minute since I've done this," she muttered. "Flitwick has been asking me for years and I kept blowing him off," she admitted.

"What are you singing?" He asked.

"Uhhh... what do you think?" She handed him her short list.

"Bunch of people aren't going to know these, why these?" he said.

"Only ones I know by heart and remember the piano melodies for that aren't bloody hymns," she said, and a moment later Flitwick stood for an announcement. "Oh bloody hell," she muttered. You've fought dragons, you've fought dragons, you've fought dragons, she repeated in her mind.

"Now, I'm happy to introduce Azalea Potter, who finally agreed to a performance, after years of my pestering her to perform solo... please give a round of applause..." Flitwick announced happily. The Gryffindor table broke into the loudest applause but Lizzie looked apprehensive.

She sat down at the piano and thought for a moment before making her final decision. "I haven't done this in awhile... My mum used to sing this particular song before bed... but she didn't get the chance to the night she died. So fourteen years later to the night, I'll sing it for her. It's a song about resistance, something she did until the very end. The Sound of Silence by Simon and Garfunkle..." There was a spatter of applause from those who didn't live under a wizard rock and undoubtedly knew the song. She caught eyes with Dumbledore, who raised his goblet at her approvingly.

Hello darkness my old friend...
I've come to talk with you again...
Because of visions softly creeping...
Left its seeds while I was sleeping...
And the vision that was planted in my brain...Still remains...
In the sound of silence...

...

Lizzie had slowed it down to an almost haunting tempo because her fingers were out of practice, but she was pleasantly surprised by her own voice. This was perfect, hardly any high notes to hit, she thought. The soft hum of the tempo was something that resurfaced quickly from a buried memory of her mother singing it in the nursery. She had always had a strong sense of nostalgia when she listened to it but it took many years to place it.

...

In restless dreams I walked alone...
Narrow streets of cobblestone...
'Neath the halo of a streetlamp...
Turned my collar to the cold and damp...
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light...
It split the night... and touched the sound of silence...

In the naked light I saw...

Ten thousand people, maybe more...

People talking without speaking...

People hearing without listening...

People writing songs that voices never shared...

No one dared...

Disturb the sound of silence.

'Fools' said I, 'you do not know'...

Silence like a cancer grows...

Hear my words that I might teach you...

Take my arms that I might reach you...

But my words like silent raindrops fell...

Echoed in the wells of silence...

Each line sent a peaceful and encouraging wave through her veins. There was an echo she didn't know if she was imagining or not. It was like she was serenading a safe and coddled part of her she had forgotten about completely, everything around her melted away.

And the people bowed and prayed...
To the neon god they made...
The sign flashed out its warning...
In the words that it was forming...
Then the sign said, 'The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls
In tenement halls'...
And whispered in the sound of silence...

No words were left in the song. She dropped her hands from the keys and applause broke out down the hall from every table. It must not have been awful, she thought absently. Flitwick clasped her hand with a big smile but the only word she made out through the applause was 'perfection.' Bullshit, she thought.

When she returned to the table, people smiled at her, but their praise about how she should have joined sooner was muffled in her ears. The only thing moving in circles through her mind was her mother. After a few moments of watching everyone around her enjoy the holiday feast, she got up abruptly to leave with a sudden need for fresh air. The others looked up at her leaving with confusion plastered across their faces. Seamus followed her out a moment later.

"That was beautiful, perfect choice," he said, and it startled her. Lizzie was leaning over the ledge that overlooked the lake, shaking her head. Clouds were moving over and it smelled like it was going to rain.

"Sorry, I'm completely distracted," she said.

"Fourteen years..." he said.

"Fourteen years as of right now," she whispered.

"They'd be really proud of you, Lizzie," he said, but she shook her head.

"The war didn't end that night, it just consolidated itself in here," she said, pointing to her head.

"I haven't always been able to resist it," she admitted.

"How do you mean?" He asked, leaning over the ledge next to her.

"I didn't realize the extent to which I've always had to choose to stay in my own heart, because sinister things happen if I let my hold slip," she said.

"You're not a bad person, Lizzie," he said.

"I've done some really bad things," she whispered.

"I'm willing to bet it was never before really bad things were done to you," he said reassuringly. Lizzie looked at him intently, considering him more than she had before and turned around to sit on the ledge, burying her hands in her hair in frustration.

Seamus stood up and observed her for a moment, unsure of what to say. He pulled her hands away from her head and leaned down to kiss her. She hadn't been kissed anyone like this since Cedric, and turned her face away with a sudden stab of guilt. But when he leaned in again she didn't turn away or resist.

At first she didn't hear the loud crack of thunder, but when the insides of her eyelids lit up with a sharp surge of lightening, she abruptly broke off from the embrace with her heart pounding in anticipation.

"Seamus, I'm so sorry, we can... erm... resume later? I've got to go get something," she said hurriedly, and ran off.

"Liz?" He shouted after her, confused, but she was already around the corner. Unsure of how much time she had, she forfeited returning for the cloak and a jacket and ran down into the forest where she hid the potion. It was cold and she was drenched by the time she got to the area she hid it.

I'm stupid, I'm going to get caught, stupid, stupid, stupid, she mumbled to herself until she saw the blood red potion.

After excitedly rehearsing the incantation, she drank the potion, and the sound of multiple heart beats pounded on her eardrums like they were going into a war-time battle. She closed her eyes and imagined the transformation, trying not to even think about a koala... and opened them in a new form entirely.

Exhilarated, she felt absolutely exhilarated. She looked down at her foot and noticed the hoofs of a deer, and bent her head forward to move one hoof across her head, no antlers. I'm a doe, she thought. If a deer could laugh she would have.

Walking forward was a challenge at first on four legs, but after a moment and some momentum, she bounded through the forest at full speed, heart pounding in excitement, relief, and the feeling of absolute freedom.

Up at the edge of the clearing, she looked up at the castle and imagined herself in her own body again. Once she transformed, however, she found herself impossibly low to the ground, and the furthest from a human form she could have hoped for. No legs, no arms, and when her head rotated back, she saw her body was a thick rope of smooth scales coiled around itself.

No, she thought in a panic and closed her eyes to transform again. Lizzie sat there, drenched and shaking, staring down at trembling human hands when she saw a light and heard footsteps coming down the pathway. Without a second thought, she transformed back into the doe and retreated into the trees quietly.

Snape noticed Seamus walking out of the hall after Lizzie and waited several moments for them to return while their absence went seemingly unnoticed by the other teachers. He wandered out there himself after a reasonable amount of time had elapsed, and could see them snogging from afar. Before he could approach and hand out the detentions that were sitting eagerly on the front of his mouth, he noticed Lizzie shift abruptly and run off.

"Where is she off to, Mr. Finnegan?" Snape asked menacingly as Seamus walked back toward the Great Hall. He looked startled and abashed but shook his head that he didn't know.

Snape headed off in the general direction he thought he saw her go, but she was out of sight almost immediately. He looked down from a corridor balcony over the bridge to the grounds, and caught sight of a quick movement at the end of the bridge and headed down quickly.

She's not this moronic, he thought standing at the forest edge. Then he remembered how she chased a werewolf into the same forest and took that thought back immediately.

The light was growing stronger as Lizzie backed herself further into the trees. When her hoof triggered the sound of a breaking branch, the light was shone directly at her face. Lizzie now understood the meaning of deer in the headlights, it was paralyzing. She stared back at the outline of Snape and her heart hammered violently.

He stared with wide eyes back at her, almost like he knew. Well of course he knew, she thought, maybe he can still read my mind like this... even if he can't, I'm not acting like a deer. Act like a deer, stupid. How does a deer act? She pondered. Lizzie walked away from the trees and then away from Snape in plain sight, but he watched her intently.

Snape eventually turned to leave and head back up the walk. Lizzie knew she couldn't follow as a doe or he would certainly know it was her, and wanted this form to stay secret, so she transformed back into herself, successfully so on the first try, and followed him quietly from a distance in the shrubbery, unsure how exactly she would make it make to the castle unseen. Snape stopped suddenly and looked around. Lizzie crouched down low but knew he sensed her presence. Turn your lunatic mind off Lizzie, he will know its you immediately, she pled with herself.

Then she heard him walking toward her and quietly rounded the tree out of sight. After a moment, Lizzie swore she heard footsteps retreat further away and she moved back around the tree only to come face-to-face with him. Her heart stopped and he looked absolutely feral. Snape snatched her arm and yanked her hard as he aggressively walked her clear from the forest.

"Let go, that hurts," she said breathlessly, his nails bearing into her arm, but he no sooner grabbed both arms and she was nearly lifted off the ground in his grip.

"You're the doe," he whispered. She shook her head no and gulped, but he smacked her hard in response. It sounded loud and hurt especially bad with how wet her face was from the rain.

"Just out in an electrical storm for fun then?" He hissed. "Don't lie to me. This was dangerous and idiotic even for you."

He pushed her forward, with a firm grip on her arm still, and walked her toward the bridge. He was seething but silent.

Tonks caught up with them at the bridge. Snape let go of Lizzie's arm harshly, launching her forward at Tonks, and stormed off angrily.

"What's the matter with you?" Tonks growled, shaking Lizzie's shoulders.

"It's a doe," Lizzie laughed uncontrollably. "It's a doe, I did it," her laugh was growing contagious and Tonks's mouth curled into a smile. "I did it, I'm a doe, the potion worked," she said again between breathy laughter. Tonks grabbed Lizzie's face but she could not stop laughing.

"You're serious? You? Really?!" She laughed a little too, but smacked Lizzie on the head. "For pure brilliance, you are beyond daft," she chuckled and hugged Lizzie around the shoulders. Lizzie's laugh turned into a cry, but a happy exasperated kind of cry. Tonks kissed her cheek enthusiastically and they ran inside to dry off. Lizzie made it up to the common room, still smiling from the feat in the woods, humming to herself.

"Lizzie! Where were you?" Hermione asked. Seamus walked up to her worried, but she grabbed his face and kissed him with a giant smile plastered across her face.

"What happened? Go for a run in the rain?" He asked, confused by her demeanor. She nodded enthusiastically and laughed.

She crouched down and rummaged through a box under the record player. "Is she losing it?" Ron whispered to Hermione, but she shook her head equally dumbfounded.

Lizzie pulled out a record and kissed it, she added it to the player and sat on the floor with her back to the table it was sitting on. The Sound of Silence started playing through light scratches on the vinyl. Lizzie closed her eyes and listened as she pushed her fist into her heart and felt closer than she'd ever felt to her mother in fourteen years.