"Want me to hex Snivellus for you, Evans?" Black smirked at her. Of course, it would be Black to ask her first. Potter would hex first, and then play it off like it was all for her. Pettigrew would get something in sneakily. No one knew how he managed it. It was just one of those mysteries of Hogwarts. Lupin wouldn't hex him, but he wouldn't butt in on it to stop the others, either, something almost worse than taking part.
Their childish nickname for her once friend sheared through her fledgling occlumency shields like a cutting curse through parchment. Tears welled in her eyes as memories and emotions kept in abeyance by the mind arts came rushing back.
Why'd occlumency have to be so darn hard anyway?
One of the memories that came to the forefront was the last spell she and Seve – No - The Bastard had worked on with her. Nasty bugger. It was probably a few months from completion, they – no, just him, she wasn't having any part with him or his spellcrafting anymore – needed to trim down the number of cuts, in favor of size. As it was now… That dashing rogue act of Black's might be a little harder to pull off with a face that looked like it had a running blender slammed into it.
"Get lost, Black." She hissed. She needed to blow off some steam, and there was really only one place to do it. She'd be visiting the Chamber after Charms, then. It was decided.
Sometimes she needed to get free of the hustle and bustle of the school. Even in this denouement to the year, with everyone taking it easy. The Chamber was an excellent place to blow off some steam.
"How are you doing, Lily?" Alice asked her, moving in to cut out Black. Alice was great like that. Always knew just when to pry, and when not to.
"I'm doing well, Alice. As well as I can be." Lily sighed. She wasn't sure what she was going to do next year.
"You ready to go home?"
"Not really. Can't use magic at home, can I?" Lily pondered. "It will be nice to see my parents. And my sister's moving out for university, so I don't have much to worry about with her."
"I s'pose not." Alice frowned. "You could always come visit me. My parents don't care about the trace." She waved her hand with a laugh.
"Thanks for offering. I'll consider it. Let's get to study group. I bet Marlene is waiting for us."
They walked to the library together. Alice's parents had gotten a windfall in their business and were planning on putting up some war wards with the sum. Frank had also finally worked up the courage to ask her out. A bit late in the year, but better late than never, really.
"Oh look, it's the manic-mudblood." Mulciber leered at them, calling Lily by the slur reserved for her. The slur she had gotten after disappearing into the library for three days in third year with Sev – The Bastard. When they came out, they had found the recipe for the Animagus form revealing potion, produced functional shield patronus charms, made the Anti-Eavesdropping charm from scratch, gotten a good ways into the first steps of making the Ankle Noose and it's counter, and burned through several cauldron's worth of Invigorating, Wide-eye, Energy, and Pepper-Up Potions. Lily had also come out looking like a mad scientist, with frazzled hair. Her fingers twitched for her wand, the automatic response to the pain that came from remembering the halcyon days with someone who might as well have been her left hand, but she caught herself. As satisfying as transfiguring Mulciber's skin into scales might be, it wasn't worth it.
"She's twitchy! Gotten back into the supply again, or brewed your own this time, Mudblood?" He jibed. "It's no surprise Snape cut loose a slag like you. I'm just confused as to what took him so long."
Maybe… Decisions can be gone back on, right?
Her wand flew into her hand, and she pointed it at Mulciber. "Sectosab-" No. That curse wasn't ready, and was also somewhat lethal. "Llamadat-"
Mulciber was faster, taking advantage of her moment of hesitation. She was silenced by a lightning-fast charm, and then hit with a barrage of bludgeoning and light cutting curses. Alice pulled out her wand but was stunned before she could do anything.
"Looks like the mudblood slag's gotten herself lost and is now where she belongs. At the feet of her betters." The small crowd of serpents jeered at her.
"I know just what to do! MYOSINOSA!" Lily's body spasmed as the muscle cramping curse wracked her. Raw terror consumed her as just how powerless she was in this instance struck her. Blood oozed out of the gashes in her face, stinging as it dribbled into her eyes.
"SOMNIUM HORRIBILIS!" The familiar voice of Marlene McKinnon cried. A wash of white energy flashed past them, and Lily felt quite drowsy.
"Bastards." She spat. A hand appeared in front of her, and Lily took it. Her friend hauled her to her feet. "You okay?"
"Yeah. Nothing too major. You should probably wake up Alice." Marlene nodded, and pressed her wand to Alice's chest.
"Rennervate." The classmate gasped as she woke up. She looked at Lily and seemed disappointed.
"You shouldn't have done that, Lily." She chastised.
"I know, it's just – "
"I said you shouldn't have done that. I never said I didn't understand." Alice cut her off. "Here, let me get those injuries of yours."
"It's fine." Lily waved her off. "I wanted to practice some healing charms regardless... Listen, I'm not feeling this whole 'people thing' right now so I'm gonna go someplace quiet. See you at dinner."
"Alright Lils" Marlene effused. Her friends, thank Merlin, knew that sometime she just needed time alone. "We're here if you need us."
"Thanks Marlene. I'll be fine." Lily reassured her friend. She needed to get to the Chamber and blow off some steam. Only three visits to that place and it was already hers, a place no one else could get to. Sure, it was damp, and her only company was a giant snake and a racist painting, but that was a fine tradeoff for that library.
She rushed into the second-floor bathroom. "Hey Myrtle."
"Hello Lily." The ghost called back. "What's wrong?" Myrtle Warren's form rested on the sink.
"It's nothing too much, Myrtle." Lily drew in a sharp breath through her nose. "Just more of the blood bigots."
She hissed at the sink, and it retreated. Then, she called for stairs. Salazar had refused her that, but Tessie was kind enough to tell her.
"Oh great, you're back. Here I thought that I would get lucky and you'd trip and fall on a staircase." Salazar called out. "§Or maybe you'd get tired of going down the slide. It doesn't matter, since apparently my snake is a traitor and told you the secret§."
"§Choke on a snake, Sally§." Lily called back. Tessie hissed an indistinct laugh at her nickname for Slytherin.
"§Great, and now you've got Tessie doing it§." Slytherin grumbled. He took note of the blemishes and cuts on her face. "What are those injuries from? Am I going to get lucky and find you died doing something gryffindorish?"
"Nope!" Lily smirked at the painting. "Some blood purist Slytherins attacked me. Then, Marlene handed them their collective arses!"
"By all of the indignities." Salazar hissed, his words laden with anger. "I can't believe my house. Attacking someone in a position where they may be easily defeated? That's something Gryffindor would have done, simply because he didn't think things through. Where is the cunning? The subtlety? The gain? It's disgraceful!"
"Most Slytherins are pretty dumb these days." Lily nodded in agreement. "I thought I had befriended the only intelligent one. I thought wrong."
"The universe is playing some cosmic joke on me." Salazar held his head in his hands. "I can't believe this."
"Welp, you better." Lily taunted him. She sat down and leaned back in a chair, and then conjured a full-sized mirror to look at.
"Vulnera Sanentur. Vulnera Sanentur. Vulnera Sanentur." Her voice was almost a prayer, or a song, as she moved the wand over her face. The willow and unicorn hair implement practically sang in delight in her hands, elated to be doing healing spells. It thrummed with power.
"That's a rather interesting healing spell." Salazar appraised. "I've certainly never heard of it, and neither did the last to come through here, and you wouldn't believe how much old Tom hurt himself practicing dangerous magic. Something that useful and powerful certainly would have circulated into common use by now."
"Of course you haven't heard of it. Only two people know it." Lily responded. She fired out a couple of nonverbal 'Episkey's to heal the bruises. "Me, and that bastard that used to be my best friend. The spell's inventors."
Salazar gasped in shock. "You've invented spells? At your age?"
"Yep." Lily boasted. Damnit, she was a witch and a damn fine one and she'd show the blood purists up. "It wasn't my first, either. We made one third year, three fourth year, and two this year. There's a final one we were working on, but… Obviously I'm no longer part of the process on that one."
"My goodness. I suppose if a mudblood must disgrace these hallowed chambers, it is preferable that they are actually intelligent.
"I'm glad I live up to your exacting standards." Lily retorted with dripping sarcasm. She flicked her wand and summoned a book of questionable curses.
"Mmm. Awfully violent book, that." Salazar smiled. "Going after revenge, are we?"
"No." Lily replied truthfully. "Just… Just want to be ready for the future." She walked down the stairs and stroked the basilisk's scales for a bit while she read the book.
"§I Like her§." Tessie's deep voice rumbled.
"§Silence, traitor§." Salazar grumbled at his snake. "§She called you an 'Overgrown worm, did she not§?"
"§Yes, but she also strokes my scales§." The basilisk gave a roll of its crest like it was shrugging. "§I like having my scales stroked§."
Lily smirked as she left through the mouth into the chamber proper. A few flicks of her wand, and scattered stones were transfigured into a small army of practice dummies. She layered a quick enchantment on another stone and transfigured it into a book rest. The platform floated up, and Lily placed the book on it. She read a few pages of the book, practiced the wand movements to each curse, or spell, or jinx, and then fired a few into the wall. After getting comfortable with about twenty or so of the vile hexes within the book, she turned to the army of test dummies, and unleashed her pent-up anger.
The book was broken up into chapters, with each containing a series of progressively more difficult spells of a certain category. The first was bludgeoning curses, followed by cutting curses, then blasting curses, so on, and so forth.
Lily painted the targets with the spells, the rush of the magic flowing through her exhilarating. The negative thoughts and feelings that pervaded her after her encounter became the fuel for the spells. Some of the spells, her wand cast normally, but others the willow stick resisted, as if it were displeased with what she was doing. After twenty minutes of straight casting, there was a littered field of debris in place of the dummies.
She waved her wand to clean up her mess, and then saw Tessie's yellow eyes and green snout peaking out of the mouth of Slytherin like a massive, alien tongue. The serpent flicked its own tongue.
"§Impressive§." The snake congratulated her.
"§Thanks§." Lily hissed back at her. She conjured a rag and mopped some of the sweat off her head.
"§I'm sorry about Sal§." The serpent apologized. "§He can't smell your power like I can, and won't get over his silly old prejudices§."
"§You surprise me, Tessie§." Lily offered. "§I didn't expect you to deviate from Salazar's ideas§."
"§Good. I'd hate to be normal§." The snake seemed almost amused, as if was giggling in Parseltongue. "§You humans have all of these silly lines notions. We snakes do it better. I'm the Queen, or Empress, of snakes. I divide humans up into three categories. Speakers, like yourself, who speak the sacred tongue. The students of this school, whom I am bound to protect, and all others§."
"§That's an interesting worldview§." Lily conceded.
"§It's not a worldview. It just is§."
"§I suppose snakes and humans do it different§."
"§Do we ever§." The basilisk sighed. "§Even if Salazar is unwilling to see reason, I see no reason why an Heiress as powerful as yourself shouldn't be allowed to make use of these resources§."
Lily gave the basilisk a half-hearted smile. "§Thanks Tessie. Is there anything I can do for you? You're always so nice, especially for a sixty-foot monster of death§."
"§I mean, you could rub behind my crown again§?"
"§Fine§." Lily leaned against her emerald scales and began rubbing vigorously. Tessie cooed softly, the rolled to the side. Lily couldn't help but to smirk at her antics. The basilisk purred, and then shifted, slithering back into her den. Lily stayed with her, rubbing the snake's back and crown in deliberate motions until the snake went to sleep. She may have been a very dangerous monster, but Lily had to admit Tessie was actually pretty beautiful.
And nice.
She got up and went back into the study. The desk was covered in parchment, but much of it was rather new, only looking to be about half a century old.
"What's this?" Lily pondered aloud. The papers were covered in arithmancy, the likes of which she had never seen before, and was written in neat, ordered script.
"Right, sifting through the notes of our betters, are we?" Slytherin called out.
"It's not like anyone else is using them." Lily short back. "Tom Riddle. What a delightfully mundane name."
"The last Heir to come through." Slytherin explained. "Delusions of grandeur, mild insanity, did me the bad service of driving my basilisk insane. His only redeeming traits were his willingness to accept his ancestry and the fact that he was at least a halfblood, unlike someone I could name."
"Shut up, you old geezer." Lily shot back. "This arithmancy is, well, fascinating. It appears to do something with the soul, although what exactly, I cannot say."
"I do not know what he was doing either. He was obsessed with it, whatever it was. The last time I saw him, it was just after he had used Tessie to kill a student, and he proclaimed that 'he had done it'. I never saw him again afterwards." Salazar recalled. There was a hint of derision in his voice. "I doubt you will be able to figure out much from those scraps. He took the majority with him when he left."
Lily scooped the papers into a neat pile, and set them into one of the desk's drawers. "Might be something interesting to go through later." At the bottom of the drawer, an ancient tome, bound in aged, faded leather sat. The title was 'Arcana Major' and printed on the front with gold inlay. Lily reached a hand in slowly and pulled it out. She set the book on the table and cracked it open. It practically thrummed with power. Not the angry, spiteful power of some of the darker tomes, nor the strange aloofness of the books on active occlumency that some of the books in Slytherin's Library exuded, but just power. Raw, fresh, natural power not tainted by any darkness or the character of the arts inside. Whereas the book on lightning spells felt electric in her hands, and the book on fire spells felt like a river of magma, this was, this was a babbling brook in spring, begging to be played in, to relax by, and yet, it was a roaring river rapids, threatening to drag under and drown anyone that entered without proper precautions. It was pure. It was beautiful. It was awesome.
Lily's occlumency snapped down on that last realization. The book was causing mental affects. The Bastard had mentioned this. 'The Sorcerer's Lament' was a book that drew the reader in unless they had powerful occlumency. This could happen sometimes, with magical books. She examined her feelings, and where they came from.
The book wasn't causing her to feel it from ill intentions. No, the book was just that powerful. The magic within was so potent it just made her feel like that.
Greedily, she turned the pages, skimming the contents. Any magic that could provoke that feeling was probably worth learning. The book detailed what the author called 'High Magic'. Magic that was elegant, and powerful, and precise. Magic that inspired fear of the gods within mortals.
In short, the type of magic used by the Dumbledore's, Grindelwald's, and Voldemort's of the world.
"Found Rowena's magnum opus, have we?" Salazar snorted derisively. Lily's green eyes flicked up to the portrait, were Slytherin was smirking. She looked back at the book and flipped to the front page. Sure enough, the book had been written by Rowena Ravenclaw.
"This is…" She started.
"Worth more than your entire filthy muggle family." Slytherin spat. "Rowena was brilliant with magic. Far more than I. That book has been handled by the likes of Merlin, Morgana le Fay, Emeric Foundling, and so many other greats. That book was the foundation for the magic used to sink the Spanish Armada, drive back entire armies, cage the fae in their realms, and build Hogwarts itself. You have neither the power nor the skill for half the magicks within that book."
"Perhaps." Lily smirked, flipping through the pages. "But only time shall tell, won't it?"
"Cocky girl." Salazar snorted. "It wouldn't do for you to destroy the chamber and me attempting magic within that book improperly. While none would regret your loss less than I, something actually important might be damaged if you make a mistake. I suggest limiting yourself to the first section if you absolutely must."
Lily closed the book. Maybe she wasn't ready for magic of that scale yet. As interesting as spells like Light of One-Thousand Suns, The Malevolent Heavens, A Sea Divided, and The Hand of God sounded, it was probably better left for the future.
She pulled the drawer open and set the book back into it. Taking her hand away felt almost wrong, like there was something she was giving up. She shut the drawer and took a deep breath.
Curious, she went through the next few drawers. The top drawer on the left was empty, the drawer below it had a few scraps of paper, but the drawer beneath that had a small collection of wands. She looked in it and saw that most of them had little tags hanging off of them. She rifled her hand through the tags, checking them out. Most of them appeared to be the back-up wands to previous Heirs. Most of them were antagonistic towards her and prickled where her hand passed them.
The bottom drawer on the right, beneath the drawer that 'Arcana Major' was secreted away in, was the biggest surprise. There was a collection of scrolls and bound books that appeared to be diaries, journals, or handwritten treatises left by previous inhabitants, but the greatest surprise was a small, leather bound diary that was obviously muggle in origin sitting near the top. Intrigued, she pulled it out and opened it up.
The diary had been purchased from Winstanley's Bookstore & Stationers on Vauxhall Road, and was noticeably blank, save for the small inscription of a T.M. Riddle at the front. Intrigued, Lily turned the page.
A/N: Yes, I am evil. No, I'm not sorry at all.
I'm not sure exactly where the idea of 'High Magic' came from, but if I had to guess, I'd blame when your gay wizarding crush thinks she's straight being read at the same time as the tarot scene in Harry Potter and the Prince of Slytherin.
Also, Limpieza de Sangre is a decent enough bet as well.
Goodness, I'm a mess. An evil mess.
Now that I think of it, it could have been Practical Guide to Evil as well.
I'll shut up now.