CHAPTER TWO
2 Months Ago-------June, 1997
It was an old problem, waking at these hours, from a dream. Harry was rather alarmed and very frustrated when he awoke at 3am from his dream…dream, not nightmare. He had not been plagued by nightmares from Voldemort and instead plagued…no, blessed, with dreams of the most peculiar nature.
He'd dreamt of a woman.
(Alright, you can get you mind out of the gutter now. Not THAT kind of dream.)
He'd dreamt of an angel.
For the first time in his life, Harry wanted to dwell on his dream. He pulled his covers over his head in hopes the darkness would bring into sharper relief the remnants of his dream now wisps of memory in his head. He smiled as he closed his eyes, reaching out to remember what was quickly fading with the light of day
Harry was experienced in the art of retrieving dreams. Many times before he had needed to recall dreams to help the Order but this dream was different. He desperately wanted to keep it to himself, as if he was being told it must remain a secret; that lives depended on it.
"Never mind that." Said Harry, shaking out the ominous thoughts.
"..think back...think back."
He had been in this dungeon of sorts. Well, not really...the marble floors and walls wouldn't be appropriate. Maybe a museum or mausoleum or crypt…he didn't care. It was beautifully lit with torches in gilded holders along both sides of a long corridor. The flames flickered coldly, as if ushering him out…until, a song began to float through the air.
It was the music from something like a flute or fife; and it was enchanting. The flames seemed to recognize the music and calmed themselves, gently pulling Harry out of the corridor and up a flight of stairs made of marble identical to the walls and floors, swirling surfaces of black and white.
Harry felt like he was in a trance as he followed the lyrical strains of music up the stairs that led to what seemed like a ceiling; until the ceiling opened and moonlight shone through.
He seemed to have left the confines of the crypt and was now out in the open surrounded by pillars made from white stone. More ruins than the mighty pillars as they once must have been, they were covered in vines and ivy; a seemingly sacred place. There was no alter or structure, just an open circle made with a central, smooth, circular stone and many circles and rays stemming from it. Aside from the unmarked center stone, the surrounding stones were all intricately carved with runes and symbols Harry didn't recognize. He wished for a second Hermione was here to decipher them, but quickly and jealously decided to maintain his secret.
This sacred place made Harry feel like an intruder, like he shouldn't be here, but the music was loudest here, and there was no way he could leave now. His yearning to find the source of the music was almost instinctive, as if he knew it was meant for him and him alone. Slowly this pull toward the music…telling him that he had been invited to come, that he belonged here, overcame the push of the Ancient Place to leave and he felt the tension loosen.
Then, as he reached out his hand, the pillars drew away at a certain point in their holy circle, almost like a curtain. It revealed a golden gate that opened before Harry's hand even touched it. The music was even stronger now….flowing and seeping into Harry's body and soul with its ancient Celtic notes.
The gate led to the most beautiful garden Harry had ever seen. He once thought no one's garden could be more pristine than Aunt Petunia's, with her neatly lined ferns and perfectly shaped flower beds….and he was right, but wrong. This garden, reveled in its glorious wildness and had flowers and vines flowing every which way, yet all in perfect harmony. They seemed to draw him toward the lake in the middle, in which there was a breezeway and a covered pavilion to one side.
The next thing he knew, Harry was in the Pavilion, as if he'd Apparated without knowing. He started and glanced around to get his bearings as the music swirling around him faded away. Then he noticed there was a person sitting in this pavilion, looking out at the lake.
Snapping out of his reverie Harry whispered, "Excuse me…where am I? Who are you?"
The figure, a woman, turned around and stood. Her robes were pure white and embroidered with silver flowers and golden swirls and in one slender white hand was that magical flute that had brought him here. The lake cast an ethereal light from behind her and reflected dancing bits of light off the elegant silvery hair ornaments in her abundant glossy curls. Her large deep blue eyes seemed to flash violet here and were framed with the thickest, most sooty black lashes Harry had ever seen. Her face was delicate but regal and her skin glowed like the magnificent lake. As she smiled and walked toward Harry her robes seemed to float and whirl around her almost as if she was a mythical goddess.
Harry felt faint…he'd literally stopped breathing. He started to gasp and gulp in air the closer she drew but the peculiar scent and feeling she brought with her made him feel suddenly at peace and he could breathe easily again as she stood in front of him. Her tilted her head gently, smiled the smallest of smiles and whispered, "…you came." Then as she lifted her hand to stroke his cheek…how he longed for that one caress…..
He awoke. Always awoke.
The beautiful vision would fade further and further away and he could hear echoes of her calling to him.
Harry opened his eyes, knowing from experience that it was fruitless, the more he tried to recount the dream, the more faded his vision of her became until he could not for the life of him remember what the details of her face. She became a blurry memory, gleaming like the surface of her lake. All that he could remember were the lilting notes of her divine flute.
In general, the content and meaning of his dream alarmed Harry greatly; but he was not nearly as distracted by any abstract meaning it could have for nothing so beautiful could be related to Voldemort.
"Ughhh" Harry moaned in frustration.
He felt as though this dream was not a vision from evil but a beckoning from something greater. Harry absolutely needed to find the source of his dream, of the music, the lady of the lake. Beauty was not all that was pulling at him, but a strange sense of familiarity as well.
"I know her! I know her from somewhere and I need to find her. But where? And how?"
Harry plopped himself back down on the creaky cot in his small room at #4 Privet Drive and messed up his hair at a new frustration the source of which, in this almost seventeen year old boy hardly needs explaining.
Halfway across the world another figure opened her tired eyes clearly exhausted from her efforts. Her lifted hands dropped to her silken lap as the misty light around the bowl of stood in front of disappeared.
"It's no use!" cried the exasperated young woman. "I become just as caught into the dream as he. And when I reach out to make a connection all my magic fades and I can't maintain the connection anymore."
Lovely arched brows previously furrowed in frustration and self-loathing now unfolded and a clear forehead smoothed out as coral lips pressed together in a line of determination. Her eyes softened in reverence as she turned from the bowl of liquid she had knelt in front of toward an alter of white stone holding up that which she held so dear, draped in the brightest cloth of silver.
The lady knelt on one knee as if accepting a royal quest and bowed her veiled head. As she looked up she spoke with the solemnity and gravity of someone who had a mantle of great weight on her thin shoulders.
"Mistress, it appears it is beyond my abilities to bring the Seeker here. Therefore, I will go and seek him out myself. The task shall be completed, I assure you Mistress."
She turned with a graceful flourish of those delicate robes and a pirouette of her satin slippers and slipped out of the marble chamber into the hall with the golden torch holders who respectfully guided her out into the first rays of dawn. Then, as the first beams of day soaked into her alabaster skin, she turned one last time toward the crypt and whispered half to herself...
"I won't let you down...Grandmamá." as a single pearly tear ran down her pallid cheek and fell as the first dewdrop of the new morn.
The House was in silent uproar. Servants, human and elfish scurried to and fro to prepare for the sudden journey that was to strip the household of the very person who held it together. But the young Mistress...no, the new Madame had given her orders and they were to be obeyed without question and without hesitation. The older house elves already mutely understood what wasn't to be spoken of, that this was to fulfill the previous Madame's deathbed orders and must be done at whatever cost; and thus they kept the younger ones moving in well-oiled precision.
As the servants scurried above and below, the Lady sat at a grand piano next to a young girl, no older than 7 with a large white bow in her thick chestnut hair. Nimble fingers moved languidly next to a set of much smaller ones as melody melded with harmony in waves of pretty music. Suddenly, the music halted as tiny hands dropped off the black and white keys into a white laced lap.
Large forget-me-not blue eyes looked up as the child spoke with startling refinement of language . "I don't understand. Why can't I come with you? It'd only be for a few days before we'd be back at home anyways, I would not be in the way, nor cause any trouble."
The Lady sighed and looked at the child with soft eyes and replied,
"Because this is something I must do alone. There is much that must be addressed by only those concerned and outside parties would only complicate things. Besides, where I'm going is too dangerous for you to follow. You'll join us later, when I deem it right."
The child nodded her consent with an accepting lower of her beribboned head and stood with outstretched hand.
Then, suddenly, there came a loud crash from somewhere downstairs that caused the two by the piano to rush toward the door as the urgent voices of two bickering girls drifted up the spiral staircase.
The Lady and the child look at each other and smiled. The little nymph stretched out her hands again as she started for the stairs.
"Come on Sissy, let's see what the twins have done and I'll help you think of a very creative penance."
Later that night, a small black jet opened it's doors and welcomed in the willowy figure of the Mistress of the House. She neatly tucked herself into one of the plush seats as a glass of her favorite wine was placed in front of her immediately. The pilot was still in the dark about his destination due to the mystery that permanently shrouded the Mistress of that House and her travels.
Gregory Ivanovitch Pastnikov was a squib of great height and few words. While unable to perform magic, he had many other attributes such as absolute loyalty and absolute silence, traits much valued in the Household. He served as pilot, driver and occasionally coachman for his Mistress and the Mistress before her and from what he saw where he flew and drove , all in utmost secrecy, he knew the current Mistress of the House was rich, beautiful and important. But for someone who had been working for her and her family for the last 13 years, that's all he knew; and part of him told him, it was better that way.
Gregory bowed as she took a sip of wine and murmured,"where to M'lady?"
From the darkness of the plane came an exact terse reply,
"to England Grisha…to #4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey. "
The coachman eyebrows lifted in a rare display of emotion. The Mistress never went to England. He'd flown many important Englishmen to the House but never his Mistress to England. He was a squib, but he knew what went on in that hapless island; shaking his head he replied, "yes M'lady, to England..." then he added surreptitiously "...heaven help us."
Milady sank back into the plush velvet cushions of her transport and sighed deeply.
She whispered to herself quietly as her heavy lashes fell onto her cheeks as exhaustion washed over her, "I've called to the heavens already, Grisha...they haven't replied."
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