May 1992
There was a rustle of cloth and a thump as someone sat down next to her. Focused on her textbook, Dorea was surprised enough that she jumped. "There you are, what were—" Dorea cut off, blinked at the girl next to her. "Hermione."
Halfway through pulling out books and scrolls of parchment, Hermione frowned at her. "Yes? I'm sorry, what were you saying?"
Hadn't been listening, apparently — exams were coming up soon, Hermione had been very distractible lately. Which more than a little silly. Everybody knew Hermione was one of the best students in their class, at least when it came to essays and exams, she probably didn't even need to revise to get top marks. "I thought you were Liz. She should have been here a few minutes ago. Have you seen her?"
"Oh, yes, actually." Hermione sounded a little surprised, possibly at the thought that Hermione knew where Liz was and Dorea didn't (which was fair, she guessed). "I caught a glimpse of her near Transfiguration, heading toward the east stairs with Quirrell."
Dorea froze, all thought of revising for Potions falling away.
There was absolutely no reason Liz should be anywhere near Quirrell, especially not alone. Liz had never liked Quirrell, from their very first Defence class she'd avoided him when at all possible — the last to arrive and the first to leave, ignoring calls to see him during office hours and a couple times even blowing off detentions he'd assigned at her retreating back. Since that time she'd been hospitalised after a dueling practice, she'd even skipped his classes entirely, she hadn't gone to Defence since February. (Which she was getting away with somehow, Dorea assumed Snape was covering for her with the rest of the staff.)
Liz had never explained why, but Dorea was pretty sure she'd put it together anyway. She remembered Liz had said Quirrell was a legilimens — Dorea had the uncomfortable feeling Quirrell had been mentally assaulting her every time they were in a room together. (The occasional winces when he was around, how Liz would seem inexplicably tired and irritable after talking to him, that was her best guess.) She suspected that soul magic curse she'd been hospitalised from had been Quirrell's fault somehow. Dorea had probably witnessed it being cast, she'd been standing right there, she didn't doubt that an adult wizard, one who specialised in Defence (and thus things someone might need to defend themselves from), could easily do something around her without her noticing. Quirrell had, she suspected, tried to murder Liz that day, right in front of her.
It was still a bloody strange thought, Dorea didn't know what to think about that. Or why the hell nobody had done anything about it. She'd noticed Snape was keeping a close eye on Quirrell, but that was it — he'd nearly murdered a student, and he was still just walking around! She might have told someone herself, but Snape said the Headmaster already knew, which...really?!
(She'd thought, when she'd overheard months ago some older Slytherins venting about that incident with the troll — they'd thought it was in the dungeons, and Dumbledore had told them to go to their dorm, in the dungeons — that they had to be exaggerating quite a bit, the Headmaster wouldn't actually risk their lives just because they were Slytherins, but since learning he knew Quirrell had tried to murder Liz, she had to wonder...)
Liz had done everything she could to stay as far away from Quirrell as possible. There was no reason they should be together.
Unless he was trying to kill her again.
She jumped to her feet, her chair clattering to the floor behind her. "I have to go."
"Dorea, what—" But she didn't hear any more than that, she was already moving, slipping through the tables toward the door out of the library. She had to get to Liz, but she didn't know where she was — the east wing wasn't exactly small, and it was mostly abandoned — and if she could find them Quirrell would probably just kill her too. She needed to find one of the professors, preferably one of the scarier ones, like Snape or Flitwick, someone who stood a shot at tracking Liz down and dealing with whatever Quirrell might try, and she had to find them fast, she didn't know how long—
"Dora!" Her silly older cousin was here, sitting at one of the tables near the doors...and flirting with some Gryffindor, it looked like, Dorea didn't recognise him at a glance. (At least, she thought it was Dora — her face changed too much, but who else would have bright neon-blue hair?) Her silly older cousin who, she knew, was on the school dueling team, and had done an internship with the Aurors last summer.
"Hey, Doe, what's—" Dorea grabbed her upper arm with both hands, dragged her out of her chair. (Or, Dora allowed herself to be dragged, more like.) "Woah, baby cousin, what's got your knickers in a—"
Her voice pitched low, she hissed, "Liz is alone with Quirrell."
The smirk instantly dropped from Dora's face, going hard and blank as stone, her previously bright blue hair turning to solid black in a blink. (Snape had 'suggested' she keep her suspicions to herself, but she'd made one exception.) Dora shook her grip around her arm, then took the lead, pulling Dorea out of the library at just under a run.
But then she stopped as soon as they were in the hall. "Come on, we have to—"
"Shush." Dora had her wand out, eyes squeezed shut in concentration. She tapped herself on the forehead, drew a circle in front of her chest, parallel to the floor. A blob of silver light separated from her head, swirled around the pair of them for a moment before coming to a rest, floating a bit above Dorea's shoulder to the right. "Oh, good." Dora didn't explain what this meant, what she was doing, she just started running.
Dorea, of course, followed her.
She didn't know how far they ran. There were hallways and staircases, she didn't know which, she wasn't paying attention. All she saw was her cousin in front of her, she didn't look at anything else, she only followed.
Eventually, after a blur of stone and colour she couldn't really remember, Dora came to a stop. "Son of a bitch."
"What is—" Dorea leaned forward with a gasp, bending nearly double, her hands shaking on her knees. At some point, her vision had gone a bit grey and fuzzy at the edges, she hadn't even noticed, she'd only been paying attention to her cousin. She was a bit out of breath, but it wasn't actually that bad — the lightheadedness, the numb tingles crawling over her limbs, that was worse. For a second there, she'd gone too fuzzy, black spots flicking over the stone around her, her hearing going soft and indistinct. She took a couple long, slow breaths, trying to push the grey back. (Passing out in the middle of the hallway just because she'd run a little bit would be embarrassing.) "What is it?"
"Doe? Will you be good staying here while I—"
"No, I'm coming with." Dorea straightened to glare at her cousin — she'd been wearing a very curvy, very feminine body flirting with the Gryffindor, but now she looked slimmer, very androgynous, her summer robes swapped out for a vest and shorts (downright scandalous by magical standards). Preparing for a fight, Dorea guessed. She managed to hold her cousin's eyes, despite still feeling a little dizzy.
Dora huffed, rolling her eyes, obviously less than impressed with her attitude. She finished casting some kind of spell, little green lights swirling around her for a moment before dancing away, bounding off down the halls. "Messenger charm," she said, probably to an unspoken question on Dorea's face. "Easily blocked by wards, though, the professors might not get them." Which was why she hadn't cast one earlier, Dorea assumed, though she wasn't certain what had changed in the last couple minutes. With a flick of her wand, the door swung open.
There was a huffing of breath, like giant noses sniffing, followed by a growl, so low and so loud her bones rattled. Gritting her teeth, Dorea stepped through the door behind her cousin, and immediately froze. That was a three-headed dog. And not a dog-sized one either, no, it was fucking huge, a shifting mass of black and brown fur, yellow fangs as long as her arm, she could probably crawl into one of its three mouths if she wanted to, how was this thing even real...
She jumped when the growling was interrupted with electric guitars and percussion, appearing out of nowhere. It was sort of loud, actually, Dorea winced, resisting the urge to cover her ears with her hands. The bloody cerberus, weirdly enough, let out a low relaxed hum. Before it'd even gotten all the way up to its feet, it was relaxing again, and in a matter of seconds it was snoring.
...Dorea had so many questions.
But the one she asked was, "Is that Guns N' Roses? Really?"
Levitating the dog's enormous paw off of a flimsy-looking wooden trapdoor set into the floor, Dora shrugged. "It was on the radio over break, first thing I thought of." Grinning at Dorea over her shoulder, she spoke in time with the vocals, "I'm a cold heart-breaker, fit to burn, and I'll rip your heart in two, and I'll leave you—" She vanished, dropping through the trapdoor in mid-sentence.
"Hey!" Was that supposed to be funny?! Dorea was so annoyed with her infuriating cousin, just, flouncing around like a crazy person, and so worried about Liz maybe being murdered right now, that she did something very stupid.
She jumped in after her.
For a few long seconds, her stomach lifting up into her throat, she fell through a large, plain stone chamber, the walls painted with dancing firelight and shadow. The light was from Dora, she was under her casting some kind of fire spell, contorting into a ring around her, vines retreating into shadow, leaving hard stone beneath. Just as Dorea finally started being properly afraid she was going to slam into the floor and break her legs or something, her cousin's wand flicked in her direction, and her descent abruptly slowed. She landed almost silently, the impact no harder than stepping down stairs.
Dora shot her a crooked, exasperated glare, the flames surrounding them casting her face in deep, sharp shadows. With her very serious face on, all pale and grim, it was actually sort of creepy. "You weren't supposed to follow me."
"Yes, well, it's too late now."
"I can levitate you up out of here very easily, you know."
Dorea pouted.
It only took a second before Dora let out a harsh groan, her eyes tipping up to the ceiling. (Adorableness was her cousin's greatest weakness, six-year-old Dorea had learned this very quickly.) "Ugh, fine! This is a terrible idea, but fine! Just stay behind me, and don't do anything stupid. Gail is gonna kill me..." she finished, voice dropping to a low mumble. (Not that she had to worry about that — Mum would certainly be annoyed with Dora for letting her get mixed up in something actually dangerous, but she was a muggle, she wasn't any actual threat to Dora. She should be more worried about Andi, really, she wouldn't be any happier, and was actually capable of doing something about it.) Shaking her head to herself, Dora whipped around on her heel, storming off for the only exit.
It was too late for Dorea to not do anything stupid, she thought, but pointing that out would be worse than useless. She followed Dora out into a low, narrow hallway, the stone rough-cut and unornamented. "Where are we?"
"The forbidden corridor on the third floor."
...Oh. She vaguely remembered Dumbledore saying something about...somewhere on the third floor of the east wing being out of bounds at the start of term feast, but she'd hardly given it a second thought since. "What the hell is this place?"
Dora shrugged. "Dunno. There are these rooms with simple little challenges in them, but the final room only has a mirror in it. Several of the upper-year Ravenclaws and Gryffindors have been to the end, and the mirror supposedly shows you things, but no one has any idea why all this is here. Observe: the room with all the flying keys."
The hall came to an end, opening up into a huge, vaguely cylindrical chamber, the ceiling stretching up high over their heads. The air was filled with dozens and dozens of creatures flying about on glittering wings in all colours of the rainbow, throwing chinks of shifting light all over the walls...except they weren't creatures, they were bloody keys, apparently animated to fly. Which, she was pretty sure you didn't need to actually give them wings to do, that was just silly. "Er..."
"Notice the brooms to the side," Dora said, casually flicking her open hand toward a row of them as she walked down the centre of the room. "You're supposed to fly up and catch the one key in all that mess that opens the door. Apparently the bloody things try to attack you too, it's much easier coordinating with a couple fliers."
"Should we be..." She didn't know how much help she'd be, Dorea wasn't a very good flier...
Dora snorted. Still moving, she raised her wand, the tip dancing with a few swishes and slashes — probably drawing some kind of shape, didn't know enough to recognise this sort of thing. Then, with an almost casual jab, a crackling blue-green spellglow twice as thick as Dora's arm shot out at the door. There was a snapping of electricity, followed by a flash of light that had her seeing spots, along with a deafening explosion, a second later a heavy thud.
When the spots and the dust cleared, Dora could see the door had been completely blown off its hinges, now lying on the floor of the hallway beyond. That was one way to deal with the problem, she guessed. "Jesus, Dora..."
"Come on, he'll have heard that, he knows we're coming."
Honestly, Dorea doubted that made any difference — Quirrell was going to do what he was going to do anyway. On the other hand, Liz knew there was someone coming after her now, that she wasn't alone, Dorea thought that was worth giving Quirrell a little warning. But she didn't say anything, rushed after her cousin at a jog through the door into another little hallway.
"Shite, move, move!" Dora grabbed her wrist, and broke into a run, half-dragging Dorea behind her.
They were in another chamber now, Dorea took quick glances around her between focusing on keeping up. (Dora hit her with a featherweight charm after a moment, so at least she wasn't stumbling over herself quite as much.) It looked like they were standing in the middle of a bloody enormous chess set — the floor checkered white and black, lines of glittering gold runes threaded along the seams, pieces in the form of solid granite statues two to four times her height, white and black with little sparks of quartz glimmering here and there. Half of the pieces were broken, smashed apart as though someone had hacked at them with some seriously destructive curses, though they were pulling themselves together as Dorea watched, bits of stone skittering across the room to rejoin with their source, patching together without a seam.
Dora was charging straight at the half-reassembled line of white pawns. As her foot stepped onto the square one space away, the pawns moved with a harsh grinding noise, drawing out swords as long as Dorea was tall, one in each hand. (Apparently, they hadn't been smashed by spells, but by each other.) Her heart jumping into her throat, Dorea planted in her heels, but with the featherweight charm on her it didn't do much good, she was wrenched forward, didn't even seem to slow Dora down.
Though, a couple steps later, Dora planted her feet, spun around, her arm wrapping around Dorea's waist. Magic rushed over Dorea in a tingling wave, and the world around her stretched, like a wet painting someone was smearing at with a hand. There was a thud, shaking her whole body all at once, the smearing twisted up and to the right a little, the blurry white shapes of the pawns slid behind them with another thud, and one of the pieces (queen, probably) was swiping down at them, but the world was still sliding, it had barely moved much at all before they were slipping under and past it, another jolt, this time jerking her to the left, and—
Everything crashed to a halt, a wave of dizziness hitting Dorea badly enough she nearly fell even with her cousin holding her up. While she was busy trying to steady her own breathing, her head still spinning, Dora said, "Sorry about that, had to get through before the board was done resetting. Slipping through the full set would have been a lot harder."
Dora's grip on her loosened, Dorea teetered for a moment but didn't fall, let herself be pulled forward by the hand. "What was that?"
"Ah, it's usually referred to as quick-step. It's nature magic, technically, originating from the Far East, though it's been practised in Europe for about as long as the Wizengamot's been around."
"I've never bloody heard of that."
Dora snorted. "I can guarantee you Liz has — it's impractical to use as transportation magic, but it's pretty common among professional duelists these days."
Oh, well, that sort of made sense that she wouldn't have heard of it, if it was that specialised. Most people didn't learn combat magic beyond what was required in school, and Dorea didn't really follow dueling at all.
It wasn't long before they were stepping into a new chamber. This one smelled awful, like garbage let sit out far too long, Dorea covered her nose with her free hand. She remembered the last time she'd smelled something like this just as she spotted the troll at the centre of the room — this one was even larger and more vicious-looking than the one Liz had put to sleep, sharp fangs long enough they protruded from its mouth, claws on its hands, its club augmented with bits of metal scrap fixed onto it seemingly at random.
"Stay back." Dora twisted, planted her feet, and then shot forward toward the troll impossibly fast — she didn't disappear from one place and reappear at another, but instead seemed to be moving in fast-forward somehow, reduced to a smeared blur from the outside. (Presumably, she was doing that quick-step thing again.) The troll roared at suddenly finding an intruder within arm's reach, the sound harsh and grating. Dora flicked her wand at it, a yellow spellglow lashing out to splash against its chest, with seemingly no effect, and the troll swiped at her with a clawed hand, Dora bouncing back out of reach, a swipe of her wand and a slash opened up across the troll's midsection, dark blood dribbling over mottled grey skin.
The troll roared again, higher this time, Dorea clapped her hands over her ears. It wound up, the club coming down in a heavy blow, but Dora dipped into a crouch and jabbed her wand upward — the club was flung away, hard enough it was ripped out of the troll's hand, crashing against the floor a dozen metres behind it. While the troll teetered back a couple steps, Dora flicked her wand, conjured stone appearing to encase one of the troll's legs up to the knee, then the other. The troll nearly lost balance, one overlong arm reaching back to prop itself up, turning back to scream at Dora. (Even with her hands over her ears, Dorea winced.) Dora hardly blinked, staring up at it, her wand levelled, hesitating a second or two.
A precisely-aimed red-purple spellglow slipped between the troll's teeth, and it instantly passed out, collapsing backward with a floor-shivering thump.
Dora vanished the stone around its legs with a casual swish, flicked her fingers at Dorea. "Come on, we can't be far behind now."
She followed Dora into the next little hallway, giving the snoring troll a wider berth than was probably necessary. After a short jog, they came into another chamber — Dorea jumped as, the instant they passed through the door, there was a roar of burning fire, the way out now blocked by thick purple-white flames four metres high. This room was smaller than most of the rest, holding only a single narrow table, a line of bottles set down the middle. On the opposite end of the room, blocking the door out, was another wall of fire, this one an absolute black, so thick and dark it almost looked like a solid thing, but somehow moving, flickering. It was a little creepy, honestly.
Dora walked up to the table, cast a couple detection charms, then let out a harsh scoff. "And he cursed the bottle, of course. Come on."
Standing closer to the unnatural black fire was somehow even creepier. Dorea couldn't say why, exactly, there was just something wrong about them, it was making her uncomfortable, nervous tingles working down her spine, her stomach turning. If it was bothering Dora she didn't show it, flicking charms one after another at the fire, with no visible effect. "What are you doing?"
"There's more than one way through flammae perdentes. Granted, only like four — the potion is sabotaged and the floor is warded against transfiguration, but that still leaves two." One last charm, and the fire shuddered, the flickering of the flames seeming to slow, just a little bit. The effect was so slight Dorea wasn't certain she hadn't imagined it. Dorea was hit with a featherweight charm again (the old one had worn off at some point), and Dora dipped down to one knee, beckoning her with a flick of her fingers. "Here, climb on."
Dorea nearly asked why, but there was no way she could get through this shite on her own, slowing Dora down would only make her second-guess bringing her along. Trying not to feel awkward about it, she lifted one foot over Dora's leg, propping her thigh over Dora's hip, wrapped her arms over her shoulders. She nearly fell when Dora stood up, but the featherweight charm made holding on a whole lot easier.
"The next room is the last one. I'm going in cursing, no point in talking. Don't bother trying to hex him with anything, and stay close to me. Okay?"
Dorea took a steadying breath, swallowing the nerves threatening to tighten her throat. She'd asked to come along, Dora would be taking up all of Quirrell's attention, she'd be fine. "Okay."
"Right, hold on." Dora muttered a lengthy incantation — that sounded like Cambrian, which was weird, Celtic languages weren't usually used in spells — when she was finished something wet and cold splashed against her, covering her head to toe. Dora was affected too, her neck away from Dorea's face was covered in this odd blue gell, thick and squishy. Dora's wand was still moving, and she let out a little gasp, arms clenching tighter around her cousin, as the world shifted a little around them, Dora's feet lifting off the ground, tilting as Dora leaned forward.
Dorea wanted to ask what the hell she was doing, bit her lip to stop herself from distracting her.
With a hard jerk, they were dragged forward, before Dorea could hardly gasp they were shooting through the unnervingly-impossible flames. For a brief second, everything was blackness pressing in against her, tinted slightly bluish by the gel covering them, she was blasted with intense heat, like opening the oven door but from every direction at once. A second later they were bursting out the other side, Dora coming to a halt on the floor with a couple skipping steps. The gel covering them was sizzling a bit, blue-green steam lifting from the surface, then it was gone in a blink, vanished with another casual flick of Dora's wand.
Before Dorea could ask if she should be getting off now, Dora dipped a bit, and the hallway smeared around her, and they were darting ahead with impossible speed.
They snapped to a halt in another chamber, made of the same plain greyish stone as the rest of the castle, the only contents a full-size mirror — nearly two metres tall, the reflective surface slightly tarnished with age, the frame glittering gold and silver. Standing in front of it were Quirrell, dressed in plain black trousers and shirt, and Liz, who looked unharmed, though she seemed slightly dazed, her eyes a bit glassy, not quite in focus.
As Quirrell took a step to the side, so the mirror wasn't directly behind him, dragging Liz along by a hand on her shoulder, Dora's hand under Dorea's knee lifted away, so she let go, stepping a little away. Quirrell started talking, saying something about not doing anything foolish, but Dora's wand was already moving.
A blue-white shield snapped into existence just in time to intercept a red stunning charm, quickly followed by a bevy of white stinging jinxes and a yellow spell Dorea didn't recognise. Quirrell shot off a reddish spell — not a stunning charm, Dorea didn't know what it was — which Dora blocked with a disc of conjured bronze, letting it clatter to the ground a second later, then countering with a twisting, green-black spell, the air whistling around it as it passed. Quirrell cursed, dispelling his own shield with a flick of his wrist, even as Dora gave a harsh swish, Dorea's robes rustling in the sudden breeze. The green-black spell nailed Quirrell in the chest, with seemingly no effect, but Quirrell didn't fire off a hex of his own, his wand instead turning to the floor, his shoulders hunching — a second later, he ducked his head as a heavy wind appeared to slam into him, pushed back a couple steps by the force.
Quirrell hardly moved, but the mirror toppled over with a crash, and Liz, her messy hair whipping around like crazy, was practically picked up off her feet, stumbling away to slam into the back wall. (Not too hard, it looked like, but that had probably hurt anyway.) A few more spells shot out at Quirrell, Dora made a swish to the side, and there was suddenly ice under Dorea's feet, she nearly toppled over, and then actually toppled over when she was shoved away from Dora. She hit the ice a lot softer than she thought she should — oh, wait, she still had a featherweight charm on her, never mind — and went slipping along, careening towards the nearest corner of the room.
She couldn't see what was going on, but she could hear the crashing and crackling of curses hitting shield charms, the air shuddering with the force. Her trail of ice came to an end, and she instantly caught on the solid stone, rolling across the floor a few times before she finally came to a halt. Slightly dizzy, it took her a second to get a knee under her, turn to face the rest of the room. Dora was over by Liz now — whatever spell Liz had been under was broken, her thin face now twisted with fury and her wand in hand — trading spells rapidfire back and forth with Quirrell. Liz wasn't actually casting anything, apparently realising she'd be useless in this fight, her wand shaking impotently at her hip.
Dorea jerked, an orange-ish spellglow was coming right at her! She pushed herself to her feet, but she knew she'd be too slow. Then Dora was zipping over to her (that quick-step thing did look handy), and she smacked the curse with her wand, deflecting it up and to the side. When it hit the wall, now well over Dorea's head, it exploded, bits of stone torn out and flung into the air, freezing in place after a second, then contorting, shifting colours, now a cloud of bronze blades and needles that— "You son of a bitch!" —sliced across the room toward Quirrell with a slash of Dora's wand.
For a second, Dora could hardly breathe, blankly staring at the crater carved into the wall. That spell Quirrell had flung at her, that'd been a blasting curse.
He'd tried to kill her.
Dorea was startled out of her shock by a crackling bang, the fight wasn't over, pay attention. Liz was nearby now, kneeling behind Dora. Forcing her shaking limbs to move, Dorea crawled over, her hand coming up to Liz's shoulder. (Liz twitched, stiffening for a second.) "Are you okay? I didn't know anything was wrong until you—"
"I'm fine," Liz interrupted, "thanks for coming after me. Here." Liz pointed her wand at Dora's back, "Aethere seiunge," Dora twitched as the spell hit — it didn't look like it did anything, but when she started casting again the spells came a little bit faster, seemingly lighter on her feet. Liz's wand turned to Dorea, cast it again.
Dorea tensed, but she didn't feel anything. "What was that?"
"Mind magic shield." Oh, right, Quirrell was a legilimens, that made sense. "I'm going to try to distract him with legilimency, hit me with a stinging jinx if I need to come back."
Dorea wanted to say something, Dora had said to not try to help, but Liz had abilities she didn't, it was probably fine, she bit her lip and kept her doubts to herself. She pulled out her own wand, hit Liz with a featherweight charm. Sliding closer, she wrapped her arm around Liz's waist, her other hand over Liz's, holding her fingers closed around her wand. Liz had tensed again, shooting Dorea a narrow-eyed look. "In case we need to move." And she figured Liz had to hold that mind magic shield, if she dropped her wand...
Liz let out a huff, but didn't object. She screwed her eyes shut, after a second or two went very still, slumping almost limp against Dorea.
Dorea bit her lip — that was slightly worrying, but she just had to trust Liz knew what she was doing.
She was startled out of her concern by an ear-splitting bang, shards of blackened and smoking bronze rained down on them, she glanced up to see Dora had a dozen blades and discs of bronze floating around them, spinning to intercept the curses she didn't just let splash against her shield, one occasionally winging off toward Quirrell, complementing the curses still flying from her wand one after the other after the other. The air was practically filled with multicolour spellglows zipping back and forth, Dorea could hardly make out what was happening, the show eye-dazzling.
It was hard to tell, she could barely see him through the flickering curses and shifting bronze, but it looked like Quirrell was staggering, struggling to keep up.
With a roaring and snapping of electricity, a wave of black lightning crawled across the ground, jumping out from where Quirrell stood and racing toward them. The bronze shields over them whirled, twisting around in a blink to surround them, stabbing into the ground. The lightning washed over them, the conjured barrier shuddering, flickers of blackness flashing at the seams, but it held. Dora had crouched down, turned to face them, her wand flicking and swishing as she muttered another long incantation in what sounded very much like more Cambrian.
Actually, Dorea felt very certain that wasn't an ordinary spell — with some of those flicks, little cuts opened up across her hand, a rune drawn into the centre of her palm, a couple more at the pads of her fingers, little beads of blood sprouting and dripping to the ground. There were a few flickers, so faint Dorea wasn't certain she'd seen them, but then increasingly bright, Dora's hand soon seeming to glow with a hard, shivering light.
Their bronze shield vanished in a blink, Dora stood as she turned, lashing out toward Quirrell with her open hand. Quirrell cast a shield, something glowing a soft orange, but Dorea had to close her eyes and look away as lightning sprang out of Dora's hand, a dozen bolts in white and blue and green, so bright she saw spots. The air shook with the crashing of thunder, again and again and again, she hardly heard Liz against her let out a pained hiss.
Liz was moving again, shivering and shaking her head — she was back. Whatever the hell that seriously impressive magic Dora had just done was, Quirrell must have gotten hit by it. It was over, Dora had won, and Liz was fine.
Dorea let out a breath she hadn't realised she'd been holding.
Her knees shaking a little, Dorea stood, pulling a still shivering Liz up with her. Dora was a short distance away, moving toward Quirrell — slowly, cautiously, her wand unwaveringly pointed at him. Which didn't really seem necessary to Dorea. He wasn't moving, skin reddened and robes steaming. He didn't even look alive, honestly.
She should probably feel something about witnessing her cousin maybe killing her Defence professor, but honestly she was just relieved Liz was okay.
Liz twitched, "Look out!" but Quirrell's wand was already up, a spell a bright, sick green lancing out, crackling like lightning and flickering like fire, and Dorea gasped — she recognised that curse instantly: the Killing Curse, the Unforgivable one. Liz's warning had come too late, but Dora hadn't needed it, she'd leaned out of the way even as the curse was cast, it splashed harmlessly against the ceiling over Dorea's head.
(Even from this far away, she was touched with a harsh, cold breeze, her stomach turning.)
"Distona!" A sharp yellow-orange curse sprung from Dora's wand, in a blink striking Quirrell in the chest. There was an odd poof sound, a little cloud of dust thrown up before scattering down to the ground again.
No, not dust, Dorea realised — she couldn't see from this angle, but she suspected that curse had just atomised a significant portion of Quirrell's body. Given where he'd been hit with it, yeah, Dorea was pretty sure Quirrell was very, very dead.
Dorea started moving toward Dora — she didn't exactly want to see what Quirrell looked like right now, but the door was that way, they should probably be leaving — but was stopped by a hand on her shoulder. Liz hissed, "Wait, something's wrong."
"What do you—"
"Expecto patronum!"
Soft, blue-silver light sprung out of Dora's wand, a wave of gentle warmth splashing over the room, like curling up under a quilt with a mug of wassail, or when she used to slip into her mother's bed during thunderstorms back at the old apartment (before they moved in with Richie, Dorea had been tiny). Liz's hands were making fists in her robes, and Quirrell's body was moving, she'd thought he was dead, but no, it wasn't his body, not really, there was this...stuff, like fog or like smoke, or like that unnerving fire back there, thick and black and swirling, lifting off of him and turning toward them, something about it was just wrong, Dorea couldn't say how, it made her skin crawl, bile thick in her throat.
The light coming out of Dora's wand coalesced into a boar — looking almost solid despite being made of nothing, like moonlight made liquid — it scuffed its hoof on the air and charged at the sick-looking blackness, tossing its head like it were goring the stuff. The cloud recoiled, swirling, and it screeched, Dorea's bones shivered, pins jabbed into her brain, she clapped her hands over her ears, but it didn't actually seem to do very much good. And the cloud was swirling around the boar, the boar was retreating, trying to stay between them and it.
"Get down!" Dora was suddenly right there, she hadn't noticed her coming closer, throwing her arms around both their shoulders and dragging them down to her knees. She winced as she kind of pulled something in her leg a bit, but oh well. Liz was shivering, still clutching at her robe, Dorea wrapped her arms around her instinctively.
The boar wasn't a boar anymore, a dragon made of semi-translucent, silver whatever that was silently winging over to them, curling around them tail to snout, throwing a wing over their heads. Like a little glowing tent. The light-dragon shuddered, shadows shifting behind it, the black thing throwing itself against it. There was more screeching, a trickle of sick cold slipping past the warmth spread by Dora's spell, Liz was yelling something, she wasn't certain what it was (or if it was really words at all), Dorea squeezed her eyes shut, hugged Liz tighter and pressed her face into Dora's shoulder, it would give up eventually, it had to...
Then, suddenly, the bone-shivering screeching ceased, the oppressive, stomach-churning weight of the black cloud lifted away. She felt Dora move — her arm was around her, fingers in her hair, she hadn't noticed that happening — pulling away a little. Dorea opened her eyes in time to see the dragon made of light blur, twist, swirling around to condense into a little bird, perched on Dora's shoulder.
The room — streaks of it were blackened now, craters blown into the stone surface here and there, shrapnel and bits of conjured bronze and ice flung randomly all over the place — was empty now, save for the gaudy mirror lying flat against the floor. Whatever that thing had been, it was gone.
Liz retreated a bit, her hands loosening from Dorea's robes but not entirely letting go. Which was odd, Liz wasn't normally a...an affectionate sort of person. Also, Dorea noticed, a little shocked, her eyes were red, tears pooling at the corners.
She'd been crying. Dorea had never seen Liz cry before.
Her voice hoarse and choked, Liz groaned, "What the fuck was that thing?!"
Dorea didn't usually approve of that kind of language, but she had to admit, that was a good fucking question.
፠
Liz still felt cold. Pomfrey said she was fine, that she hadn't any curse damage to worry about. Liz had pulled the thin Hospital Wing blanket over her shoulders, had gotten Pomfrey to put up that neat warming charm for her again.
And yet, she was cold.
She and Dorea had both cleared their "curse-check" without anything to worry about coming up — apparently, sometimes a curse could have delayed effects that didn't turn up until hours or even days later, it was standard practice for someone who'd just been in a fight with a dark wizard to get looked over by a Healer or cursebreaker. They'd been cleared, but Dora hadn't, she was still being fussed over by Pomfrey and Snape, who she'd called up to assist after finding she'd been hit by something. They'd been told it was nothing to worry about, they'd be able to get rid of it before it could do anything to hurt her. The process would just take a little bit longer. Dora seemed more irritated than concerned, shrunk down to the body of maybe an eight-year-old, sitting on the edge of her bed pouting up at the adults working on her and impatiently kicking her feet.
(That whole metamorph thing was neat, and it turned out Dorea's silly cousin was a complete fucking badass, that fight had been amazing. Liz was a little jealous.)
Dorea was still kind of scared though, but not because she was worried about her cousin. She'd been terrified Liz was going to die. She'd managed to hold herself together well enough to get help, and make it through the fight, but now that they were safe again she'd barely said a word. Just sort of shivered — she felt cold too, apparently — and silently clung at Liz, staring at nothing, her eyes slightly unfocused from calming potion.
And she wouldn't let go of Liz, which was slightly annoying. Dorea was under the blanket with her, sitting up against the headboard next to her, both her arms wrapped tight around Liz's left, her cheek resting on her shoulder. (Her hair kept tickling at Liz's nose, but she was used to that from her own.) It was a little uncomfortable, yeah, Liz felt all weird and squirmy, but it was...fine. She guessed. She was cold, so, there was that, and Dorea really had been afraid she would die — and still was afraid, a little bit, even through the calming potion (she'd just taken a sip, but still) — so... This was fine. She guessed.
Liz wasn't really happy about it, but if this was what Dorea needed right now, fine, she could put up with it. It wasn't like it was that bad.
(Dorea was the second person Liz could remember hugging her, ever.)
They could have left already, Pomfrey said they were free to go, but Dorea was still fuzzy from the calming potion, and Liz was cold, so they'd decided to at least wait for Dora to be cleared. Well, Liz had decided to, Dorea was pretty much nonverbal — by the feel of her head, she probably would be for a little while yet. (If Liz couldn't see what was going on in there, she might almost wonder if she'd gotten hit with a curse Pomfrey had missed.) They'd been in the Hospital Wing for maybe a half an hour, probably less, when Dumbledore came sweeping into the ward.
Liz tensed, immediately. She couldn't help it. It wasn't entirely rational, she knew that, it wasn't like Dumbledore had actually hurt her, not really — and he certainly wasn't going to do anything now, there were witnesses. (Snape at least would notice if he tried anything, and Pomfrey seemed the type to dress him down for attacking little kids' minds, no matter who he was.) But she couldn't help it. She'd always been nervous around Dumbledore, since their first and only meeting back in the summer. It'd only gotten worse since she'd subsumed that bit of the Dark Lord stuck in her.
Snape's assumption that she was an amateur with this obscure Dark Arts stuff (obviously) so probably wouldn't end up getting any explicit memories had turned out to be correct, though that didn't mean there'd been no effects at all. They were just...subtler. He'd said it might be harder to keep herself from wandering into people's heads on accident, check — she'd actually gotten into the habit of, just, eavesdropping on people's thoughts all the time now, she could probably stop but she just didn't feel like putting in the effort. He'd said her spellcasting might be more powerful, but less focused, check — Charms was even easier now, but Transfiguration had suddenly become all the more difficult, enough McGonagall had even noticed she'd gotten worse for no apparent reason. (Transfiguration required greater focus, apparently, but she didn't entirely get what that meant, or why she was so bad at it, or how to stop being bad at it, it was frustrating.) He'd said she might get the occasional weird feeling she couldn't explain, check that one too.
None of them were bad, exactly. Confusing sometimes. She hadn't gotten any real memories from it, but things still felt familiar sometimes, when she didn't think they should. Like, her schoolwork, she hadn't picked up anything but sometimes she'd be reading or writing or doing something, and she got the distracting feeling that she'd done this before. It made it easier to understand things, sometimes — after all, a part of her had already learned it — but it also made it kind of frustrating, because that part of her that thought this was familiar also thought it was basic shite she'd learned forever ago, and it was boring, so it could be hard to concentrate on actually doing her bloody homework sometimes. Which was annoying, but not that big of a deal.
She had, almost without even noticing, become rather more aware of her own appearance. Several times, she'd spent longer poking at herself getting ready in front of the mirror before realising, what the hell am I doing, she'd had moments thinking she should get some not terrible clothes, and maybe do something about her hair — there were potions people could use for this stuff, right? But then, the logic of it always ended up catching. Because, when it came down to it, the whole point of looking nice was so people would have pleasant thoughts looking at her (and thus be more amenable to being manipulated), but she didn't want people paying that much attention to her, really, she'd rather just be left alone entirely (and there wasn't really anything she wanted to manipulate people to get out of them). So, she'd had a few confusing moments like that, and was sometimes more aware of how messy and awful she looked than she was entirely happy about, but it wasn't that bad.
(Liz had gotten the feeling that the Dark Lord was...kind of girly. Was that weird? She thought that was weird.)
There were also these weird, random feelings she got about people sometimes. When she saw Draco, sometimes she would have these oddly...soft feelings, that were honestly sort of distressing. Her friends had caught her staring at Draco a couple times, actually, Hermione had been half-convinced she had a crush on him or something for weeks. (Weren't they still a little young to start getting worked up over boys?) It was kind of bloody weird. She suspected the Dark Lord had been, like, teenage boyfriends with someone who'd looked like Draco — a grandfather or something, maybe — and Liz was getting a little bit of bleed-through from that. Which was, just, seriously uncomfortable.
And then there was Dumbledore.
People often said Dumbledore was the only person the Dark Lord had ever feared. And maybe that was true, Liz couldn't say for sure — she'd already been a little scared of Dumbledore herself, if she was being honest, if she was getting scared Dark Lord feelings about Dumbledore she might not even notice. (Also, being scared of Dumbledore was perfectly reasonable, he was one of the most powerful mages in the whole bloody country, really.) Maybe he had feared Dumbledore, but that wasn't the impression she got, from her little subsumption echoes.
Instead, she felt hatred. It was vague and distant, like all of her stolen Dark Lord feelings, not really connected to anything. Like, she couldn't say why exactly the Dark Lord had hated Dumbledore. But she knew he did, cold and icy and implacable, he wanted Dumbledore dead, and he wanted him to suffer along the way.
It wasn't overwhelming — her own unease with him was still more prominent, really — but it was just slightly distracting.
So, when she saw Dumbledore walking toward them, with his usual clashing robes and twinkling eyes, Liz couldn't help glaring up at him a little, feeling all too stiff and tense, her stomach turning with sudden nerves. She pulled away from the minds around her, holding herself close — not really closing herself off, exactly, just not leaving herself open to potential attack. Which was sort of disorienting, all the feelings and thoughts of everyone else in the room cutting off (except Dorea, she was close enough to still catch the feelings wafting off of her), like suddenly blinding herself, but her own mind was less vulnerable this way, denser, so she'd just have to put up with it for now.
After a few platitudes Liz honestly hardly even heard, Dumbledore asked them what exactly happened — a reasonable question, one of his professors had just been killed by a student. Dora was the one who answered, starting from the beginning, Dorea finding her in the library because Liz was missing — which was also reasonable, she was the one who'd killed the professor. Really, Liz and Dorea had hardly been involved.
Okay, to be fair, it had looked like casting that mind magic shield on Dora had helped her a bit, and attacking Quirrell had distracted him enough to tilt the scales firmly in Dora's favour. So Liz had been involved, just not until the end.
Interestingly, Dora actually left that part out, Liz helping with the mind magic side. She wasn't certain why she was doing that, but that was fine, Liz would rather not be questioned about it. Especially since it had seemed obvious that she should try to do the mind magic subsumption thing — not because she expected to succeed, but because it was a far greater threat than an ordinary legilimency attack, so Quirrell would have to dedicate more effort to making sure she didn't make any real progress. She'd rather not have to justify doing (or attempting to do, anyway) something she knew was very illegal to Dumbledore, of all people.
But maybe it wouldn't have been that big of a deal. Liz was rather surprised when they got to the part where Dora actually killed Quirrell, consciously, with a curse that was designed to kill people with. She would have expected Dumbledore to have a problem with that sort of thing, but he didn't seem to, really. Instead he took an odd... It was like he was trying to reassure Dora about something, sounding oddly sympathetic (almost pitying), which... Well, that was sort of confusing, honestly — what was he trying to reassure Dora about? Not that she wouldn't be in trouble or whatever, obviously she'd been acting in self-defence, Liz was pretty sure that was allowed. Whatever it was, Dora seemed a little exasperated, brushing off his platitudes with a roll of her eyes.
They were just getting to the part after Quirrell died when Dumbledore cut Dora off, turning to Liz. "If I may go back to the beginning, for a moment. I was wondering, Ellie, how did you come to be down there in the first place? I have it on good authority you have been avoiding Professor Quirrell's company quite effectively for some months."
Liz let out an irritated huff before she could stop herself. Once it was already out, she decided there was no reason to stop herself — she'd done nothing wrong, she had nothing to be defensive about. "Since he assaulted me and nobody did anything about it, you mean."
Dumbledore had the balls to pull a pained, regretful sort of expression, his head slightly shaking. "Unfortunately, there was little I could do. It can be very difficult to proceed with investigations involving the misuse of mind magics. Such things tend not to leave much in the way of detectable traces — without any admissible evidence, cases are reduced to one person speaking in accusation and another speaking in their defence, and the proceedings go no further. And the Board of Governors, I'm afraid, would refuse to permit the dismissal of a professor without what they feel to be due cause. Allowing you to avoid him, despite missing so many sessions of a core subject, seemed the only viable solution."
Oh. Well. She hadn't actually known that — about it being very difficult to do anything, legally, about people using mind magic. She probably didn't have to try so hard to avoid it, then. Liz had...kind of been under the impression that, like, if she got caught poking at people's heads she'd be in serious trouble, with magic police and everything. But if they wouldn't be able to prove anything, so wouldn't be able to do anything... She hadn't realised that. Okay, then.
She still wouldn't use it too much, though. There wasn't that much she really wanted to use it for in the first place, but also she probably shouldn't let too many people know about the mind magic thing. She remembered how insane people had gone over the talking to snakes thing, if they found out she could play with their heads whenever she wanted to, yeah, that one would probably be a lot worse.
But right, Dumbledore had asked her a question. An odd question, when she thought about it. "Well, it's not like I went with him on purpose."
"Natural legilimens tend to be unusually resistant to most forms of magical coercion."
For a second, Liz was annoyed with Dumbledore for just saying that, out in the open — then she remembered everybody in the room knew already, so it hardly mattered. "Ah, I don't know how he did it, exactly. It felt like a compulsion, but...not really? It didn't feel like a person, I mean. People are fuzzy, and they shift around, whatever this thing was it was too...solid. I don't know how to describe it."
"He must have been utilising a specialised focus." Everyone turned to Snape, even Dumbledore, one bushy eyebrow raised in question. "While mind mages are more naturally resistant to the setting of a compulsion than most, their greatest advantage comes in their capacity to easily break compulsions after they have been set. However, if someone were to craft an artefact with a compulsion of some kind, and designed it to enact its effect continuously, such a strategy would avoid presenting Miss Potter a weakness she can exploit."
"Is that possible?" Dumbledore sounded slightly horrified by the idea, the little bits of his face visible through the hair everywhere going a little pale. Which, Liz didn't disagree, being under that flat, heavy compulsion had not been pleasant.
Snape shrugged. "It is very difficult. There are reasons enchantments based in mind magic are not frequently used, but it is theoretically possible. Such a device cannot be automated, however — you need not worry about being sent an amulet in the post that will compel you to jump out a window, or anything of the like. This device would have acted as a focus, Quirrell would have needed to actively direct it. It simply would have required far less attention than if he were to attempt to continuously compel Miss Potter into obedience without an intermediary of some kind."
"Oh, so that's why it stopped." Liz shrugged with discomfort as eyes turned back toward her. "I mean, a couple spells in, the big heavy whatever was gone. Dora had distracted him enough he couldn't keep it going anymore, right?"
"Yes, I suspect that is exactly what happened. If Miss Tonks had hesitated for a single moment afterward, it is quite possible Quirrell could have used the same device to ensnare her just as he had you." Turning to Dora, he added, "Your ruthlessness served you well, Miss Tonks — in this particular instance."
Liz got the feeling Snape was referring to something else, a conversation they must have had before. Whatever he was talking about, Dora completely ignored the rebuke on his voice, just grinned up at him, kicking her feet.
With a thin sigh, Snape's eyes tipped up to the ceiling for a second. "You were not entirely incorrect, I suppose." It sounded like he was responding to something, but Dora hadn't actually said anything — had he been reading her mind just then? "Five points to Hufflepuff."
Dora looked very smug.
It didn't seem like Dumbledore had any better idea what was going on there than she did, but he brushed it off, turning back to Liz. He probably had more questions for her. Liz didn't really feel like answering them. It didn't help that they'd probably be stupid and annoying — had he been implying she might have been working with him a moment ago? why would she do that? what the hell was in that mirror anyway? — but she had her own question, something she was actually very curious about. Before he could do more than open his mouth, Liz asked, "Did you know Quirrell was being possessed by the Dark Lord?"
Dorea blurted out "WHAT?!" in a high, screechy yelp, dark horror suddenly pulsing off of her, and Dora and Pomfrey both went rather pale, Dora's hair abruptly flicking to a sickly grey, Pomfrey's hand coming up to cover her mouth. But she noticed neither Dumbledore nor Snape looked surprised.
She had been surprised. When she'd started her mind magic attack against Quirrell, during the fight, she'd had this odd, niggling feeling, coming into contact with Quirrell's mind — it'd felt...unnervingly familiar. It wasn't until she'd started making progress against him, and Quirrell had used the same technique he had that day in Defence class to push her out, just throwing shite at her in an overwhelming flood she could hardly make sense of — she assumed the idea was to confuse her so she could be more easily expelled, something of a desperation move, a last line of defence — Liz had noticed, abruptly, that his mind felt very similar to the bit of the Dark Lord she'd been carrying.
The original Professor Quirrell, she thought, had been subsumed by the not-quite-dead Dark Lord, all that he'd been consumed, the empty shell of his body taken over — like that bodysnatching thing Snape had described to her, months ago now. Except, not quite? The way Snape had talked about it, it sounded like bodysnatchers could, just, live on in the new body without any problems, but it looked like Quirrell hadn't been doing so well. He hadn't seemed quite well at the beginning of the year, pale and shaky, but it'd only gotten worse as the months had gone on. The last couple months, he'd gone oddly yellow-ish, his skin somehow looking too thin, a few gross sores visible here and there.
Liz didn't know about this crazy Dark Arts stuff, she was only eleven. She could only assume that whatever the hell the Dark Lord had done to make it so he couldn't properly die had, like, messed him up somehow. In a way that, trying to live in Quirrell's body, it'd just...slowly fallen apart. Or maybe he'd just fucked up the subsumption, but she found that hard to believe — Liz might be a total amateur with these things, but he was the Dark Lord, surely he knew what he was doing. She had no idea how such a thing would work, exactly, but that sort of sounded like it made sense, didn't it?
Everyone else in the room — Dorea, Dora, even Pomfrey — had all kinds of terrified, enraged questions for Dumbledore, quick and thick enough he could hardly answer one before the next was coming. Dumbledore didn't actually say as much, not directly, but it was pretty obvious reading between the lines that he had known Quirrell was being possessed by the Dark Lord, though it wasn't clear for how long. (Probably at least since the attack on her, it might have been obvious to him then, but there might have been signs even earlier that Liz hadn't been aware of.) Pomfrey in particular seemed very angry with him, for knowing the Dark Lord was in the school, and doing nothing about it.
Even if his reasons for not doing anything were actually pretty reasonable, Liz thought. For one thing, what the hell had the Dark Lord been up to anyway, showing up in a place he knew his worst enemy would be, especially when he was so weakened? (If the Dark Lord weren't in a diminished state due to not really having his own body or whatever, Dora would never have fared nearly so well in a fight with him, they would all be very dead right now.) And, well, Dumbledore had been leery of directly confronting him, precisely because they were in a school full of children. If the Dark Lord feared Dumbledore was going to make a move, there was no telling what he might do — he'd effectively been holding the entire school and everybody in it hostage. In fact, Dumbledore had been delayed because he'd been scouring the school for him, making sure that he'd actually left, and wasn't planning some kind of horrible retaliation.
As much as Liz would say she didn't like Dumbledore, and as much as that hateful part of her really didn't want to accept his excuses, she thought he had a pretty good point, actually. It wasn't like the Dark Lord had been hurting anyone — besides Quirrell, and Liz that one time (though that had mostly been the other bit of the Dark Lord stuck in her, he'd been barely involved) — there had been no pressing reason to do anything about his presence. Especially not when Dumbledore might learn something important just watching and waiting.
Nobody else seemed to agree with her, though. They all looked less than happy with him, even Snape — he wasn't saying anything about it, but he was wordlessly staring at a wall, his arms firmly crossed, she assumed his silence was meant to be tacit support for Dora and Pomfrey's yelling at Dumbledore. Of course, Liz wasn't jumping in to defend him either, but that was just because she didn't like Dumbledore, and didn't actually care about the point enough to back him up.
Besides, it was over. What the "right" thing to do had been was sort of irrelevant now, she thought.
They were a couple minutes into the weird, pointless argument when they were quite soundly interrupted by a woman, just, appearing in the middle of the Hospital Wing. Which, Liz wasn't certain she wasn't hallucinating or it wasn't an illusion at first — wasn't it supposed to be impossible to apparate into Hogwarts? And the woman had appeared completely silently too, without the usual crack most people made, or even the lighter pop Liz assumed indicated people who were better at it. She was middle-aged — like, older than grown-up but not quite old either — very blonde, her bright gold hair bound into a long plait that wrapped once around her neck before disappearing behind her back, wearing baggy trousers and a long-sleeved, wraparound sort of tunic thing, longer than a normal shirt, hanging around her hips, all in blue and white and gold, twinkles of silver in her ears and around her wrists.
Liz knew, instinctively, that this was someone important. She couldn't say how she knew — the woman didn't look that special, really. She just knew, her eyes drawn to her almost without even meaning to, wide and watchful, as though she might miss something amazing if she glanced away for a second.
The woman immediately fixed on Dumbledore, blue eyes narrowed in suspicion, her slightly-accented voice simmering with anger. "What the hell happened here, Percival?"
Dumbledore looked rather taken aback, for a second just stared back at the woman. "Perenelle? How did you get—"
"I'm not here to answer questions about forms of witchcraft you've never had the proper respect for, boy. Did I feel someone die in proximity to the Stone a bit ago?"
Dora gasped. "The Philosopher's Stone was in the castle?"
Oh, Liz had actually heard of that before. Created by Nicholas Flamel, it was one of the more famous magical artefacts in existence, that gave the holder the power to conjure pretty much anything — permanently, ignoring the Transfiguration Is Temporary rule, could create as much food or gold or anything the user wanted — and also live forever...somehow, Liz wasn't certain how that was supposed to work. The thing had been created back in the Middle Ages, but Flamel was still around, apparently...
Wait a second...
It could be her imagination, but Liz thought Dumbledore paled a little. "How do you even know about that?"
"I'm a Seer, Percy, it is well within my abilities to keep an eye on my things. Answer the question. What. Happened?"
"I killed the Dark Lord's possessed shell, that's probably the death you felt," Dora chirped. Her eyes wide with what looked oddly like wonder, "Who are you? Your magic is pretty."
The woman's lips twitched. "Why thank you, Miss Tonks. My name is Perenelle Flamel, pleasure to meet you." Yeah, there it was, Liz had suspected as much.
She had no idea how to feel about being in the presence of one of the wealthiest, most powerful people in the world, who also happened to be hundreds and hundreds of years old. Just not thinking about it seemed the best thing to do.
"Oh, er." Dora looked a bit blindsided, staring up at Flamel and rapidly blinking. "How do you know my name?"
"I look out for news of metamorph births. There aren't so many immortals, we all tend to meet each other sooner or later, and I like to be informed."
"...Oh."
The shadow of a smile on the seven-hundred-year-old woman's face flickered away as she turned back to Dumbledore. "Correct me if I am misunderstanding something, but I believe I just heard young Miss Tonks say that she killed some pour vessel overwhelmed by your Dark Lord near my Stone...in a school."
Dumbledore definitely looked pale now. "Perenelle, can we—"
"No, Percy, we can not!"
The protest choked off in Dumbledore's throat half-formed, and he nodded his head, almost meekly. "Yes, ma'am."
Liz bit her lip to keep herself from smiling, it was bloody hilarious watching Dumbledore be chastised like a disobedient child. If it was something that took a seven-hundred-year-old super-famous alchemist — who'd also been one of his teachers when he'd been younger, if Liz remembered correctly (or had that been mostly the other one, Nicholas?) — to pull it off, it probably wasn't something she'd ever see again either. She should enjoy it while it lasted.
"I never wanted to hand it over the first place — personally, I found the suggestion that you can secure my things better than I can to be somewhat hilarious. I have five centuries of experience over you and your washed-up Dark Lord combined, do you really think I'm incapable of protecting myself from a nearly powerless wraith?"
Somewhat reluctantly, as though he didn't want to contradict her but felt that he had to, Dumbledore said, "Many have underestimated Voldemort in the past, Perenelle, as you know well."
"Oh, honestly!" The woman let out a harsh sigh, her eyes tipping to the ceiling for a moment. When she looked back at Dumbledore, there was a tingle on the air, thick and electric, and Liz instinctively retreated, firming up the border between herself and the rest of the room. She couldn't even feel Dorea anymore. "I am not helpless, Percival. I have dealt with threats far more difficult to manage than what this Riddle of yours had been reduced to. Such a being would not even be able to cross the wardline around my home, and I am more than capable of exorcising whatever unfortunate vessel might be co-opted to make the attempt more directly. Do not mistake my unwillingness to involve myself in outside affairs for inability.
"I only gave you the Stone in the first place to humour you. I had no idea you would keep the bauble, which you believed your Dark Lord was pursuing, in a school. With children. Percival, my darling boy, have you lost your mind?!"
Liz bit her lip to keep herself from giggling.
Especially since Dumbledore couldn't seem to come up with anything in his own defence, staring up at the much older woman, eyes slightly out of focus, as though thinking very hard. Snape actually spoke first. "The Headmaster believed that the Dark Lord was unlikely to do anything too...provocative, while in such close proximity to his greatest foe."
Dora seemed slightly dumbfounded with that explanation. And also annoyed. "He tried to kill me! He tried to kill all three of us!"
"Yes. And he's been regularly legilimising the students — Miss Potter is hardly the only one to have drawn his attention. I did express my doubts to him, doubts I reiterated countless times over the course of this school year. The Headmaster was adamant, I'm afraid."
Liz couldn't say she was surprised Snape was apparently the only sane man in the school. He had been the one to ban love potions, after all, and he did seem to enjoy explaining to people how stupid they are — being the only sane man in the room was like his thing.
Pernelle sighed again. "What were you trying to accomplish, Percival? You're not a fool, you must have had a reason for taking such a risk."
It looked like Dumbledore wanted to refute that it was a risk, still glaring at Snape a little for stabbing him in the back (in front of someone he obviously actually respected), but he apparently decided not to say anything about that. "I was hoping... I thought, it might be possible to capture Riddle here, and find some way to permanently destroy him."
The irritation on Flamel's face softened, shifting toward a quiet, thoughtful sort of look. She closed her eyes, and went very still for a moment, obviously doing some kind of magic, though Liz could hardly guess what. When she came back, she gave Dumbledore a confused frown. "There are no isolation wards around the room the Stone is in. What form did this trap of yours take, exactly?"
"You'll recall I have in my possession a certain cursed mirror, which I augmented with my own enchantments to—"
"You mean the Mirror of Erised?" Dora gasped again, but that one Liz didn't know.
She did sort of know what the mirror did — showing the user their heart's truest desire, whatever the fuck that's supposed to mean — but only because Quirrell had told her what it was supposed to do. But, maybe keeping her under that awful compulsion had messed it up? They'd been standing in front of the thing trying to get it to work properly for a little while. First, Quirrell had told her to tell her what she saw in it...so she saw herself telling Quirrell what she saw in it. He'd fumbled with his compulsion for a bit, making it...narrower, more tightly focused on telling her what to do. (Which had been a mixed blessing, because she'd been able to think again, but she'd also been able to feel again, and that had not been pleasant.) Quirrell had not been amused when she'd told him that now she saw herself cursing him into bloody pieces — he'd been trying to figure out what to do next when Dora had shown up.
Liz suspected the heart's truest desire bit was kind of nonsense. It seemed like it worked by mind magic (standing in front of it had sort of tickled), and mind magic could be a very finicky thing. She thought what it actually did was show what the person most wanted in that moment. So, obviously, when she'd still been completely under the compulsion, it'd shown her doing what he told her to do (which was confusingly circular), and once she'd been partially out of it, it'd shown her getting the rest of the way out of it. She wouldn't have guessed her preferred method would be to messily kill him but, well, it had looked sort of satisfying, she guessed.
(Good thing she'd managed to very thoroughly change the subject earlier, before Flamel had shown up, she definitely shouldn't admit that sort of thing out loud — she would have had to come up with something, and Dumbledore would probably be able to tell she was lying.)
Flamel was rubbing at her face with both hands. "Percy, dear boy, you're sometimes far too clever for your own good. Did it not occur to you that your little Dark Lord is a mind mage, so might have some resistance against that method of ensnarement?"
"Riddle has always been a vain creature, I'd hoped that—"
"Stop. Just stop." Flamel let out another sigh, dropped her hands to fix Dumbledore with a cold stare of abject disappointment — Dumbledore cringed. (Liz didn't quite manage to hold in a laugh, coming out as a strained cough.) After a moment of silent glaring, Flamel hold out her hand, and snapped her fingers.
Suddenly, there was a sizeable gemstone in her palm. Asymmetrical and roughly-cut, it was a deep blood red, frosted here and there a silvery-white, a couple inches on either side. Flamel concentrated for a moment, her open hand hovering a short distance over the stone, and then, in a sharp, sudden movement, clapped her hand down against the gemstone. It shattered, instantly, but instead of falling into little fragments it exploded into these...red and purple and silver...sparks? They kind of looked like wand-sparks, hovering in a cloud around her hands, as though Flamel had somehow transformed the physical gemstone into magic of some kind.
A glance at everyone else, and Liz felt very certain no one had any bloody clue what she was doing either.
Flamel gathered the sparks together, cupping the glowing, twinkling cloud in her hands. After another moment of concentration, she lifted it toward her face and...inhaled it. In a short couple seconds, the dozens of little glowing sparks were all gone, vanishing into her. Flamel held her breath for a moment, then let out it out in a deep sigh, shook her head a little.
Dumbledore was staring at her, wide-eyed and open-mouthed. "What have you done?"
"Oh, don't give me that look, boy," Flamel said, a corner of her lips twitching in what looked almost like a smirk. "This Stone has served its purpose; I simply took back what was mine. If you really couldn't work that out for yourself, you must refresh your knowledge of spectral bioalchemy." For some reason, Dumbledore paled a little. Liz suspected Flamel must be suggesting something Dumbledore thought was horrifying, but she didn't know enough about the subject to guess. She didn't even know what spectral bioalchemy was. "Now, Percy, I was in the middle of something, I really must be getting back. But this conversation is not over — I'll be back...tomorrow evening, most like. Say, around five? You may beg my forgiveness over dinner."
Apparently still turning over whatever it was Flamel had said that had disturbed him so badly, Dumbledore hardly reacted. Before anyone else could say anything the famous, immortal alchemist, with a last nod at everyone else in the room, was gone, vanishing as suddenly and silently as she'd arrived.
Well. That was a thing that had happened.
For a moment, there was a thin, uncomfortable silence, everybody staring at the spot Flamel had stood. Snape moved first. "I believe we are done here, Miss Tonks. If at any time in the next three days you should come down with a seemingly inexplicable lethargy, come to Poppy or myself immediately. Do you have Ptolemy's Panacea on hand?"
"Ah." Pomfrey cleared her throat. "Yes, there's still some left from the batch we brewed over the winter holiday. If you're having any other difficulties over the next week, Miss Tonks, you should come see me, whether it seems important or not. The earliest symptoms of fatal curse damage often seem quite innocuous."
Dora gave both of them a slow, firm nod, somehow seeming more solemn than she had the entire time so far. "Yes, Professors, I understand. Sir Moody told me much the same thing."
Hissing under his breath, Snape groaned, "I still can't believe they let that lunatic anywhere near a Black metamorph — just a month of his influence has only made you even more difficult to manage. I believe I shall be very happy the moment you are forever out of my hair, Miss Tonks."
Dora just grinned at him.
"Were there any further matters we must address, Headmaster?"
Lost in his thoughts, Dumbledore twitched back into focus, frowning to himself. "Ah... Miss Potter, did Voldemort say anything to you? Even if it seems unimportant — the smallest detail could be what is needed for us to do away with him once and for all."
Liz shrugged. "Not...really? I mean, he didn't say much at all, other than telling me what to do — there wasn't really much room for conversation. The only thing that wasn't telling me what to do was explaining what the mirror does, and grumbling to himself that I'm more frustrating than both my parents put together." Which Liz had thought was odd at the time. She hadn't realised Quirrell was the Dark Lord yet, Quirrell hadn't been a professor here long enough to have taught her parents and he was too old to have been a classmate.
Letting out a short scoff, his voice low enough Liz probably wasn't supposed to hear it, Snape muttered, "He's not wrong..."
Was that supposed to be a compliment somehow? Hadn't Snape been friends with her mother? Hmm. "Yeah, so, I don't really think he said anything relevant. And, I can't imagine he would have? I mean, ranting about your evil plans or the secret of your power or whatever would just be a very stupid thing to do. I was under the impression the Dark Lord wasn't a complete idiot, what with the almost having taken over the country and all."
Dumbledore was talking, something about Voldemort — why did he keep using that name? nobody else did... — being a melodramatic son of a bitch (her words), he couldn't seem to resist taking any available opportunity to posture and brag like an absurd, over-the-top villain in a story for children (her words, again). But Snape spoke at the same time. "Miss Potter, I suspect you may be overestimating the competence of our country's esteemed leadership and their noble protectors."
Dora, Dumbledore, and Pomfrey all looked annoyed with him, but Liz failed to hold in a laugh. Which then had them all shooting her odd glances too, but that was fine — Dora had already known she was weird, Dumbledore apparently hated her for no good reason (why else would he send her back to the Dursleys, even after looking at her memories?), and she didn't really care about Pomfrey either way. Besides, it was funny.
The meeting fell apart from there, Snape sweeping out with the usual dramatic swirl of his robes, Dumbledore lingering for a moment with a last long, uncertain look at Liz before following him, more slowly and sedately. Dora got a final admonishment from Pomfrey to come see her if she was feeling unwell, and then the Healer was gone as well, leaving the three of them alone.
Silence lingered for a moment, while Dora frowned off into the distance, clearly thinking about something, Dorea still quiet, clinging to Liz's robes. She relaxed a bit, now that Flamel and Dumbledore were gone, so immediately felt that Dorea wasn't quiet inside like she'd been before — it was very busy in her head, actually, thinking about Flamels and Dark Lords and Dumbledore. Liz didn't know exactly what she was thinking, if she wanted more than the general topics she was focused on she'd have to push in further, but that was fine, if it was anything important Dorea would surely talk to her about it later.
After all, Dorea did know a lot more than her about the magical world, it was possible there were important implications she'd picked up that Liz had missed. If nothing else, she'd probably want to work out aloud something she didn't quite understand, Liz would hear about whatever it was eventually. Better just wait, rather than peek into her head to find out now and just have to sit through a conversation about it later anyway.
(Hermione probably wouldn't be happy if she knew one of the primary reasons Liz respected their privacy was because she didn't like having to repeat things.)
She was sort of curious what Dora was thinking about, though. She was hardly even recognisable as Dorea's silly cousin, sitting there staring into distance, her hair dark and face pale, something about her just seeming...quiet, and serious, in a way that was so outside of her usual character Liz was honestly a little surprised she was capable of it. But Dora was actually really good at occlumency, so she would definitely feel her there, chances were Liz wouldn't pick up much, if anything at all. Oh well.
Dora's serious face was abruptly replaced with a bright smile, her hair blinking into a soft yellow. "So! You girls hungry? Dinner's gotta be starting about now."
Letting out a thin sigh, Dorea straightened, her grip on Liz's arm finally loosening. "I could eat, I guess. We should definitely feed you, at least." Frowning over at Dora, she said, "If you make a joke about how you'd kill for some food, I swear..."
Oddly, Dora's smile flickered, just for an instant before it was back again. "That's just mean, Doe, who do you think I am? The elves are great, yeah, but Hogwarts food just isn't I'll kill you if you don't get out of my way good."
There was an odd note of guilt in Dorea's head. (What for? There was some subtext here Liz wasn't picking up on, apparently.) Whatever it was, she didn't say it, brushed it off with a roll of her eyes. "Let's go, then." The three of them got up, leaving the Hospital Wing behind.
And, apparently, everything else — they wouldn't speak of what had happened that day for over a year.
The song referenced is "You Could Be Mine" by Guns N' Roses, which had been charting in Britain at the time. The lyrics quoted are obviously not mine.
[flammae perdentes] — Latin, lit. "destroying/ruining flames"
[aethere seiunge] — Latin, lit. "sever/exclude (from the) aether"; in this context, "aether" is a rather poetic way to refer to ambient magic
[distona] — This word is made up, pieced together from dis-, a prefix with a few uses along the lines of "asunder" or "reversal", and a verb meaning "to thunder". This is a very lethal curse, lethal enough it would be referred to as a killing curse (just not the Unforgivable one).
Perenelle appearing to lecture at Dumbledore would also have happened in my interpretation of canon, but if events had gone as they did in the book Dumbledore would have been alone when she showed up. It's really just bad luck on his part that he just so happened to be in the middle of his wise old man routine when she came along. It's all Liz's fault for not getting knocked out for multiple days doing something that is really not her responsibility, when you think about it.
Also, Liz being a little sociopath continues to amuse me.
This chapter took longer than I expected, on account of being distracted by other projects and just not feeling it, for some reason. I've also been having insomnia issues recently, so that doesn't help. Next chapter is the summer before second year, and will be up whenever I finish it.
—Lysandra