Harbinger of Destiny: Herald of Fate
Chapter Two

Disclaimer: I do not claim rights on anything you have seen before, merely the characters and plotlines that you have not.

In the part of this universe that we know there is often great injustice. The good often suffer, and the wicked often prosper, and one hardly knows which is the more annoying.
-Bertrand Russell

She didn't know why she had come. It must have been that sense of regret which resided within her and the feeling of obligation to, if only silently, support the one who had to endure the consequences of her bad judgment.

She had felt sickened when Amin remarked idly to Malfoy that the slave who had protected here would be punished that evening in the courtyard. Malfoy, of course, was gleeful at the opportunity to watch and had spread word to his cohorts. Soon, most of the school knew.

Standing in the courtyard now she was unsurprised by the amount of people who had shown up to witness this promised public display.

Malfoy and his band of course, with the entirey to the Slytherin House, including the first years, stood leering near Amin, who seemed impatient to get this over with. Ron stood by himself, a dark look on his face. The rest of the seventh year Gryffindors stood in a quiet group. There were few Hufflepuffs present, but Hermione spotted third-year Antoine Dolohov, a surprise Sorting if ever she saw one. Some Ravenclaws were present with thoughtful expressions on their faces. Neville stood beside her, shivering.

"Perhaps you should go in," Hermione suggested gently, remembering how the oby's parents had reached their current mental incapacity. Neville furiously shook his head.

"No, we can't leave him alone. He will need us," Neville's eyes carried an eerie glint and his voice held no hint of his usual nervous stammer.

"We can do nothing for him," Hermione reminded him cautiously.

"You are wrong," Neville shook his head again. "Our presence will give him the support he needs to not break."

Their conversation was cut short by Kabul's arrival. The hulky overseer pulled the slave along on the chain he had used earlier. The slave was devoid of his usual robes and wore only thin cotton pants and no shirt. A rough burlap sack shielded his face from view, tied at the neck and Hermion wondered briefly how he could breath. Now that he was without his usual attire, the students could see the thin scars that traced the tenuous muscles which rippled across his back.

Kabul drew the man face first against a tree and lashed his arms around the tree by using the chain to attach the two gold manacles. It was too short of a chain to make the position comfortable, and everyone could see the strain in the man's arms, though he did not let out a whimper.

Kabul stepped away now and eyed the slave's bare back in a thoughtful way. Then he drew the whip he carried on him, ignoring the gasps of the students.

Hermione rolled her eyes at some of the students deploring their stupidity. This was a punishment, not a social event. What did they expect? Yet even as she was thinking this, she felt her stomach roll in protest at the action.

The overseer raised the whip and brought it down inches away from either side of the slave's face. He flinched but said nothing.

"It is Kabul's way of telling him what is about to happen to him," Neville muttered in explanation, Hermione nodded mutely.

Kabul ordered something in harsh Elvish.

"He is telling him that he must count to end the punishment," Neville said softy. Hermione looked at him in surprise.

The Gryffindor looked defensive. "All purebloods know some Elvish," he said. "At least the ones with money. At some point or another we are likely to have dealings with them and more often than not it is proffitable to communicate directly rather than with the aid of an interpreter."

Hermione turned her attention fully on the boy now. "So Malfoy..."

"Yes," Neville affirmed. "Malfoy most likely knows some, if not all, of the Elvin tongue. His lot would. If Harry..." the seventh year swallowed convulsively, "...if Harry had been around, my Gram would have insisted that he join me in learning. The Potters are as rich as any other purebloods."

Hermione wanted to inquire further about this but her attention was drawn back to the courtyard by a loud thwack. The punishment had begun. "Alle," came a strained voice from beneath the burlap sack. "One," Neville intoned dutifully, but Hermione did not need his translation. She understood now what she had caused.

From the minute he had been dragged into the courtyard, Harry had known that he would have a public punishment. Somehow, this caused him more grief than knowing what was soon to come. However, as the punishment had commenced, all these thoughts were drowned out as the pain overwhelmed him. Yes, it is as painful as it ever was, he thought wryly to himself as the lashes came down upon his barren back.

"Neki," he grunted with as much force as he could muster as the next blow rained down on him. Ten. And fifteen more to go. Harry began the technique of disassociation. His arms were wrought with tension and he could feel the circulation cut off to his hands, the bark of the tree was rough and opened small wounds upon his chest, the sack allowed him little oxygen for breathing, never mind counting, and every time he shifted his feet for comfort, the whip thudded into his legs as a remind to remain still. Kabul knew what he was doing, and altered the length of time between each lash, leaving Harry in constant tension, not knowing when the next blow would fall.

Now, he disconnected from the pain, allowing his mind to take him where it would. He distracted himself by thinking about his former friends.

Ron had seemed so very quiet…meek even, and Hermione so very brazen. He snorted to himself slightly even as he grunted out, "Piq." Fifteen. Hermione really was a Gryffindor, through and through. She had intelligence poring out her ears but not an ounce of common sense. Somehow, despite the trouble she had caused, that endeared her to him. The strain between Hermione and Ron was troubling though.

A sharp shock brought him back to himself and he barely restrained letting ring a string of Elvish curses. Kabul stood over him, pinching him harshly. Foolhardy, Harry mused, trying to escape punishment in that way. Kabul was a professional, with years of experience. He knew when slaves were no longer there.

Kabul stepped back and lashed the whip to either side of his face, barely an inch away. It was a signal to repeat the last number counted. Absently, Harry said, "Vaen." Twenty. That meant there were five more to go if Kabul was adhering to the usual punishment for such a misdemeanor.

To Harry's surprise, Kabul stopped. He felt his heart pound with trepidation. Kabul was such a by-the-book kind of man, if he did not complete the entire whipping then he must have something worse planned.

And then the order came. He was to remain there the night and the next day. A twenty-four hour public humiliation, with his blood still running in rivulets down his back, his pants soaked with it, and the rough burlap sack marring his vision and breath. He allowed himself a quiet gasp of horror.

Hermione watched with watery eyes as the punishment commenced. By the fifth, she had been ready to throw herself in front of the poor slave and end his silent suffering, but at that point Ron had appeared and wrapped his sturdy arms around her, holding her in place. He knew her to well. He did not try to drag her off, and for that much she was grateful. Somehow he knew that she had to remain.

She distracted herself by watching her fellow onlookers instead of the actual spectacle. By the tenth lash, all of the Ravenclaws had disappeared, sickened looks across their faces. By the fifteenth, all of the Gryffindors save for herself, Ron, Ginny, Allenia, and, surprisingly, Neville had gone as well, taking most of the youngest Slytherins with them, unable to watch the beating, and the silent torment any longer.

By the end of the punishment, she was sobbing to herself and she felt tears run down onto her hair from Ron. Neville remained oddly dried eyed, but his face was pale and blank, his fists clenched to his sides.

Then, abruptly, the punishment ended, and a string of Elvish words escaped the overseer's lips. She turned to Neville for a translation, but the boy was still caught in his odd trance. She caught on quickly enough though, as Kabul constructed two wooden poles in the middle of the courtyard. He unchained the bloody slave from the tree and half-dragged him over to the poles, forcing him to his knees in the center of them and raising his arms up to a considerable length on either pole, then chaining them each individually there.

"He will remain there twenty-four hours," Neville said quietly, broken out of his self-imposed isolation.

The courtyard emptied of people quickly. Kabul gave a nod to Amin, and the Elvish lord turned on his heel, apparently having seen enough. Malfoy and the rest of the Slytherins followed him, some of them trying vainly to conceal the disgust they felt, though Malfoy was not one of them and merely allowed a pleased smile to cross his face.

Ginny stormed away from an alarmed Allenia immediately after the Slytherins had disappeared inside the castle, and the Elvish girl gave the figure attached to the poles a rueful look before following the Gryffindor at a slower pace, giving Ginny time to get her thoughts together.

Soon, only Ron, Neville, and herself were left.

"Do nothing foolish," Ron told her, as he released her at last.

Ginny hadn't cried this hard since Harry had disappeared three years previous. She had restrained herself through most of the punishment, but by the end tears streamed down her face in an endless river. She didn't know why she had stayed for the entire thing, but something, something, had compelled her to remain, though she knew not what it was. She didn't even know this slave, but something made her empathize with his pain, cry out in sadness and rage as he was not allowed to do.

She had felt such sorrow in that courtyard, standing in solemn silence beside Allenia, who watched the punishment with her. Now though, in the peaceful quiet of her dorm room, alone, as no doubt the rest of her year mates were somewhere gossiping, she felt herself succumb to rage.

What kind of people allowed such things to happen? What gave anyone, any right to enslave someone and force them to do their bidding? Why hadn't someone stepped in to stop it? Wizards were so concerned with the darklord and the threat he represented, but they did nothing about the horrors that were already going on!

She punched her pillow repeatedly as she let out vicious cries, dry-eyed now, as she had no more tears to spare. She felt the despair that she had had to endure since Harry's disappearance being to set in and she tried to focus on happier thoughts and times, as her counselor had told her to do, but as soon as one fleeted through her mind, the image of that poor slave, on his knees, bleeding, reappeared.

A window shattered suddenly and Ginny tried desperately to reign in her thoughts. Her magic had a habit of spinning out of control when she was upset and it often did so in a destructive way. Like Harry's, she had been told, and the thought calmed her.

A small cough interrupted her, and Ginny turned her reddened and tear streaked face to the Elf standing in her doorway. Her eyes hardened, and words tumbled, unthinkingly onto her lips, "Enjoyed that I'm sure?"

Allenia winced, and shook her head slowly. "I am not responsible for the faults of my people," her lilting voice wavered slightly, as though she was trying to convince herself as much as the girl before her.

"But you…you could do something," Ginny insisted angrily, standing now in her full glory of five foot five and glaring at the elegant beauty before her. "You could make it stop."

"I couldn't," Allenia said, shaking her head. "If I could've, I would've. But it was not my place," her voice hardened slightly, but not unkindly. "Just as it is not your place to judge what you do not understand."

"What is there not to understand!" Ginny raged. "You creatures, you Elves, you take people away from their homes and enslave them to do what you will. Then, if they dare to speak up or act in a way not suiting to you, you do what I have just witnessed."

Allenia frowned. "Not all of us are like my brother Ginny," she said. "Unfortunately, those of us who are not are a small quantity and are status does not allow for us to speak up."

Ginny calmed down slightly, her despair retreating back into the recesses of her mind once again, waiting for another reason to appear. "I know that," she said in apology. "I know that. Not every member of a race of people is like another, and I should not take my anger out on you."

"It is alright," Allenia forgave her instantly, understanding. "I understand your need to rage at someone, anyone, if only because you know you cannot do anything else. What you just saw was Elves at their worst. I am sorry we could not help that slave, at least."

"Maybe we can," Ginny said earnestly, meeting Allenia's golden eyes. Allenia nodded in agreement.

"We will think of something."

A/N: Ok, a couple things folks. First of all, I am eternally grateful for the reviews everyone has taken the time and efforst to give my story. Second, a few of you have been wondering why Harry doesn't simply break free from the Elves, and all I can say to that is that you need to be patient. It is all part of the storyline my friends, and it would ruin the plot if I simply let everything out in the first two chapters. Everything will be understood in time my friends and I assure you that my story does in fact, have logic to it. It simply has not been yet developed to its full potential yet. All good things come in time friends, all in in good time.