Chapter 34:
Flitwick Feels Inspirational
Narcissa Malfoy
Midsummer
The Malfoy ancestral home, Ombres Reste, was a place of splendor. The walls, raised by Beaumont Malfoy and his family, unmarred by age or war stood as a testament to the skill and potency of the family's magic and their taste in décor. Even the Summoning Room, stark in comparison to the rest of the manor and clearly designed with efficiency in mind, had an undeniable elegance to it.
Most practitioners made due with one to three circles when summoning denizens of the Nevernever. After all, three carefully constructed circles would suffice to hold anything short of a god—and what fool tries to bind a god?—anything more than three and you would need a ley line to power them.
The Summoning Room has over forty concentric circles. Ombres Reste was built on top of a ley line and even with that powering all the room's circles was a feat that could not be managed for more than a few minutes.
Usually, three circles were all it to adequately contain a summons. As such the summing Room had three crafted to contain demons, three to contain Fey, three to contain spirits and three more for each of the creatures that the Malfoy family had cause to summon regularly since coming to the British Isles.
Directly above the circles was a runic pentagram that, should the circles fail to contain a summons, would release a stream of energy—roughly equivalent to a hundred lightning bolts at once—at it twin buried below the circles. This bolt of energy would, assuming that whatever had been summoned wasn't already dead, then shoot back towards the upper pentagram where the cycle would begin anew until either the energy ran out or containment failed.
At which point Ombres Reste, and much of the surrounding country side, would cease to exist.
"Don't call up what you can't put down, indeed," I said, amusement coloring my voice.
"That is the Malfoy family motto, you know," Lucius said, leaning against the wall not ten steps behind me. I turned to face him a faint frown tugging on my lips.
"Really dear? That's not what you said when you asked me to marry you."
"Oh, and just what did I say?" He asked pushing off the wall as he started towards me.
"Sanctimonia Vincet Semper," I said, stepping just out of reach as he neared me. "Purity Will Always Conquer."
"Words meant only to put the Black Princess at ease, I assure you," Lucius said stepping towards me even as I stepped back. "I believe your words suit us better."
"Really?" My lips tugged upwards before I could stop them.
"Oh yes," This time when he stepped forward I did not step away. Lucius pulled me close, his lips finding their way to my neck. "Who do we support for Minister," He trailed kisses up my neck, towards my ear. "If not a fool we can destroy?" His teeth grazed my ear and I arched into him, pressing as close as possible. "Whose loyalty should we seek, if not those who will remain in our power?"
We kissed, my hands tangled in his hair and his trailed down my back, teasing and caressing as they went. We stayed entwined until the need for air forced us to part.
"Ready to get to work?" Lucius asked, merriment dancing in his eyes. My left eye twitched and my face mouth turned into a frown in truth even as his curved into a smile.
"I told you about starting things Lucius, either finish them or be prepared for the consequences."
"I shall be more than happy to face them once our work is done," He said, stepping away. "If we are to deal with your sister, it is best we do so now. Before she decides to storm the manor."
I sighed and nodded. "Of course." Bellatrix attacking the manor was terrifying thought on its own. Bellatrix attacking while Draco and Pansy were in residence, was unconscionable.
"As always, I will be here if you need me," Lucius faded from view, not even leaving the tale-tell distortion of disillusionment.
I made my way over to the wooden chair I'd had brought in for the occasion and frowned. "Dobby, replace this with my receiving chair." Between on second and the next, the chair was exchanged with one that was much more comfortable and regal. I sat in it and, after making sure everything was in place, placed my wand on the run that would call the portkey I had sent my sister. It flashed once, twice and three times before activating.
With a snap of displaced air Bellatrix appeared inside the circles her hair almost Weasley-red but her other features were just as I remembered. As I sat taking in her appearance, and before she could so much as breathe, Lucius activated the circles.
All of them.
Bellatrix's lips drew back in a snarl and she speared me with a glare. I met her gaze calmly, my face a mask of neutrality.
"How dare you!" Bellatrix said.
"Sister," I said. "If you would like to take a seat?" I nodded to the chair behind her.
"I am a guest in your home!" Bellatrix snapped. "By what right do you restrain me?"
"Restrain? Dear sister, merely say the word and I will send back from where you came," I said.
"Have you forgotten Mothers lessons? Or has your time married to Lucius merely rotted your brain?" Bellatrix asked as she stalked back and forth, probing the edges of the first circle. The chances of her breaking the first circle were small, it was crafted to contain wizards of even greater power than her.
"You are a guest Bellatrix, mind your manners," I said.
"A guest?" Her gaze rested meaningfully on the circles. "Truly you are most hospitable, dear Sister."
"You have the audacity to question my hospitality?" I demanded. "The last time you were here you consigned Lucius's father to death!"
"He refused to embrace the Dark Lord! He refused to turn away from his precious god!" Bellatrix spat. "Dead god. False god. That old sea spirit hadn't answered a prayer since before the Malfoys came to Britain!"
"Abraxas was a sworn priest of Cichol," I said, the urge to simply activate the pentagram and be done with this farce was steadily rising. "A commitment like that cannot be broken, no matter who asks."
"If his god was so powerful he could have stopped the curse," Bellatrix smiled coyly. "My Lord would have. My Lord did."
"The Dark Lord did what?" I asked.
"He made me immortal," Bellatrix crooned, swaying in place. "He reached past the barriers of life and death and made me as onto a god. Those light hearted fools thought they killed me. Ignorant fools. Blasphemers. They couldn't kill me." Her gaze turned towards the pentagram above her. "You can't kill me." Her eyes found mine. "My faith protects me."
I felt my heart stutter and my breath caught in my throat, but I did not allow that to show on my face as I contemplated her words.
I hadn't been surprised to learn that Bellatrix was still alive. For all that the Ministry touted her death in the papers, it wasn't that hard to fake your death. Even with the kind of scrutiny that her supposed corps had been under, the spells that it would have been subjected to, to be sure of her identity, could be fooled. If she lacked basic dignity and all moral fiber.
A babe, grown in her womb.
A Polyjuice potion and the imperious curse.
That would be all she needed to fool everybody. The young women I remembered form Hogwarts wouldn't have done it, could not have done it.
The women—if such a word could be used to describe her anymore—who stood before me now? The Dark Lords favored? Every inch the monster our mother made her? She could have done so and would have done so happily.
But if she had not done that, if she had actually died and found her way beack, and if she were actually telling the truth, than that changed everything.
"I see," I said. "If that's the case than why has the Dark Lord not returned?"
"He has been busy, but now the time has come for him to return," Bellatrix frowned. "Now where is the book?"
This was my chance, either I gave her what she wanted or I activated the pentagram and hoped that whatever spell bound her to life failed.
In the end, it wasn't really a choice.
I motioned behind her. "On the chair." Giving her the book would either change nothing or it would make the newly resurrected Dark Lord look upon us favorably.
And a Dark Lord, further along in his ambitions than anyone had dared hope, could be just the patron to see the Malfoy family through this new millennium.
Bellatrix turned, picked up the book and cradled it to her chest. "With this, I shall have my Lord." She swayed in place for a moment before turning to face me. "It's time I left, things to do and people to collect."
I nodded.
"Goodbye sister," I said. I touched my wand to the run and a moment later the circles powered down and Bellatrix disappeared.
"That was informative," Lucius said, placing his hand on my shoulder as he faded into view next to me.
"And worrying," I reached up and got a firm grip on his hand before giving it a yank. The yank came at an odd angle, lacking the force to actually move him but he fell obligingly to his knees. I hooked my leg behind his head, thankful yet again for the flexibility of enchanted dress wear. "But that is for another time. For now, you have work to do."
Lucius smiled.
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Alex
So, apparently, stabbing unfamiliar portals with sticks is a bad idea. Not because of any property of portals or sticks, no there was nothing wrong with them. Rather the danger comes when one doesn't know what's on the other side of the portal, or more specifically how close whatever's on the other side of the portal is.
"I'm going to get you, Potter!" Pansy screeched, one eye firmly clinched shut and the other glaring at me with promises of fiery death. Apparently Pansy had been examining the portal from her end and when my meter stick came through it managed to score a direct hit.
"Sorry!" I said as I cowered behind Hermione.
Pansy growled.
Actually growled.
I eeped and, deciding that discretion was the better part of valor, pushed Hermione at Pansy with a battle cry of, "Protect me, Squire!" and made for the door.
I dodged around Pansy, her arms full with my meter stick and Hermione, my legs pumping and my arms outstretched, I just brushed the door's handle with my fingertips when something slithered around my ankles stopping my legs cold. It did not stop my momentum, though, my feet may have stopped but the rest of my body kept going forward right into the floor.
I managed to get my arms out in front of me and arrest my fall but even as I did so I felt the thing gripping me crawl up my body restrain my arms. My arms and legs confined, my fingers splayed, I was raised upright and turned to face my captors.
"Lapidem Vineam," I said identifying the spell holding me prisoner. Loosely translated it meant stone vine, but a more accurate description of its effects would be stone tentacle. The spell, as you may have surmised, created a stone tentacle where ever the caster wanted that would, if not kept under control, attack whatever was nearby. It was a fourth year spell, not because of the power required to cast it, but because of how difficult it was to control. It was also the spell that won Hermione her duel with the level three training dummy last year. "Nice casting!"
"Thank you," Hermione said calmly, her wand pointed directly at me a look of concentration on her features. "As sorry as I am to interrupt you running away…"
"Strategic repositioning," I interrupted.
"…because you were doing so well…"
"Thank you!" I said.
"…but perhaps we can focus on what happened to our rooms?" Hermione finished, looking between Pansy and me.
"Sounds good to me," I said.
"Alright," Pansy said, eyeing me with a smirk. "As long as you keep her restrained. We wouldn't want any more accidents, would we?"
"Hey—what, I said I was sorry!" I said.
"And I believe you, really I do," Pansy said, her smirk widening. "But now we have to focus on the matter at hand, and you seem to have too much energy to focus."
"You were the one chasing me!" I cried indignantly, doing my best to ignore the snickers coming from the back of my mind. "I was just testing the safety of the portal, you're the one who jumped through it and started all of this!"
"Tut-tut Potter, take responsibility for your action," Pansy said. I was about to respond when Hermione interjected.
"Alright, that's enough!" Hermione glared at the two of us. "We have class in less than an hour, and if we want enough time to eat and get our schedule's form Professor Flitwick than we need to focus."
"But…" I tried.
"If I miss the first class of the year because of the two of you, I swear I will transfigure the both of you into the wall!" Hermione said. She wasn't quite frothing with rage but it was a near thing. "Understand?"
"Right!" I nodded. In the back of my mind, Wolf gave an approving growl and Dragon, the lazy git, was still asleep.
"Understood," Pansy said giving Hermione a concerned look. "Do you have any idea what's going on?"
"Well, there are only two people who could authorize, this," Hermione gestured at the room, moving her wand in the process. Which also caused the tentacle, and therefore me, to follow the wand's movement. "Professor Dumbledore or Professor McGonagall. No one else could make a portal between Ravenclaw and Slytherin."
"But?" Pansy prompted.
"But why would they do it? And even if they had a reason to do it, why wouldn't they tell us?" Hermione asked, waving her hands expressively. The tentacle's movements were starting to make me nauseas.
Pansy's attention was focused on Hermione but her open eye glinted malevolently. "We did leave the feast fairly quickly last night."
"I'll probably be meeting with Dumbledore, today or sometime this week," I said before they could continue. "If he or Professor McGonagall are the ones who did it he'll probably say something then."
Hermione let me go and after she and Pansy grabbed their things, my class things were safely ensconced up my sleeves, we made our way to breakfast.
888
The Great Hall was mostly empty by the time we got there most of the students and all of the Professors having already left for class. Thankfully there were stacks of schedules at the end of each table. After a quick breakfast, Pansy went off to Transfiguration while Hermione and I shuffled off to Charms.
In spite of our late start Hermione and I made it to Professor Flitwick's class just in time. In fact, as we rounded the last corner on towards the classroom, a large group of Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws came out of a stairwell that I had never seen. That in and of itself wasn't odd, what was odd was the fact that the stairwell opened on the outer wall and, past the wall, there was only air. That and the fact that the students were coming down the stairs—the Great Hall was a few floors below the Charms classroom—instead of up caused Hermione and me to trade looks.
Looks were the only thing we had time to trade because as class started right away, Professor Flitwick opened with a review of last year's material before having the class cast all the first year charms.
"Great spell work requires you to master the basics," Professor Flitwick said. "Merlin, Morgana, the Founders, unarguably the greatest witches and wizards to have ever lived. None of them started great, they became great through hard work and study." He looked around the class with the eyes of a master duelist. "Will you follow in their footsteps?"
Hermione and I were the first to finish our assigned work. Each of us received a point for Ravenclaw before Professor Flitwick had us go around and help those having the most trouble. By dint of getting to them faster, I got to help my house mates while Hermione had to help the Hufflepuffs.
Almost before I knew it class was over and Hermione and I went to our table to gather our things. Before we'd even reached the table the rest of the class were up and out of the room.
"They're in a rush," I said as I caped my ink well and stuck it in my book bag. Just because I could stuff my school things up my sleeves and save myself the hassle of carrying the around didn't mean I should. For one thing lugging my textbooks around was a decent workout and secondly the fewer people that knew I had an ace—among other things—up my sleeve the better.
"They probably just want to get to Professor Lockhart's class," Hermione said shouldering her book bag. I winced, how Hermione could carry that thing around all day was beyond me. I had trouble even lifting it, if I wanted to actually carry it around I'd need to draw on Wolf for strength. "Which is what we need to be doing if we want good seats. Most of them will be filled up with the Gryffindor and Slytherins, they just had to walk down the hall from Professor McGonagall's classroom."
As we left I noticed that the stairwell from earlier was gone and in its place rested simple stonework. I shook my head, "That's crazy."
"It's all the extra power Hogwarts is drawing from the ley lines. Most of it is going towards the wards but there's a lot of bleed off, and that energy has to be put to use, otherwise the magic will find a way to express itself." Hermione said with a faint frown.
"And that's bad?" I asked as we made our way downstairs.
"Very," Hermione said. "About five hundred years ago—five hundred twenty seven to be precise—during the fourth goblin war, the Headmaster of the time activated the siege wards but got tired of the constantly shifting architecture and commanded Hogwarts to stop. The first few days were fine, there were a few hallways where you would be heavier than usual and some where you had to swim through the air. One room got so big you could taste grapes."
"So big you could taste grapes?" I asked. "What does that mean?"
"I don't know," Hermione shook her head. "But that's how Hogwarts: A History described it."
"I don't remember that," I said. I'd read most of Hogwarts: A History and skimmed the rest but what Hermione was describing didn't sound even vaguely familiar.
"You've only read the edition from Flourish and Blotts. Bathilda Bagshot had to cut a lot from the original manuscript before the Ministry would let her publish." Hermione shook her head. "Anyway, the magic kept expressing itself until, on the third day while the school was having breakfast, the air turned into poison and everyone in the Great Hall dropped dead."
"That's," I paused unable to find a word that adequately described my feelings.
"Horrible," Hermione said.
"Yeah," I said.
The rest of our walk to Defense was made in silence.
888
The new Defense classroom reminded me of a college lecture hall. Two rows of desks on either side of the downward sloping isle. On the walls, set at even intervals, hexagonal stones with some kind of crest or rune on them, that could have been decorative but I was willing to bet weren't. It was also filled to the brim with second years. As far as I could tell we were the last to arrive.
Well the last students at least, Professor Lockhart hadn't arrived yet either.
"Look at this! I knew we should have walked faster," Hermione said, looking around the room. Thankfully before she could give into despair at having to sit at the back of the class we noticed Pansy waving at us from the front row. We made our way down and took our seats on either side of Pansy. We had just managed to set out our things when Professor Lockhart entered through a side door at the front of the room.
He paused in the doorway to gaze around the classroom, an odd look on his face. He stood there for almost a full minute without anyone noticing him, just looking around the room until his eyes meet mine, he paused, blinked before a slow smile spread across his face. He nodded at me before making his way towards the center of the floor.
"Good morning class," Professor Lockhart said, his confident voice coming from all around the room. "Who's ready for Defense?" He smirked. "Or as I like to call it, 'How not to die'."
AN: So it's been about a month since my last up date. The reason for that is college. But, good news, I'm almost done for the semester! Which means that my writing time will increase.
Anyway on to questions!
What is your favorite fight scene in New Day, New life? And why?
Which character do you want to die? From Dresden or Harry Potter or here.
What do you think is up with Lockhart?
