{Disclaimer: The Harry Potter World was created by J.K. Rowling and rights are owned by, but not limited to, Warner Brothers and Scholastic Books. I, therefore, own no parts of this save for Andromeda McGee, Wyvern and my twisted, yet original, plotline.}
Chapter 6
Wings
**Give me my wings/ I'm ready to fly today/ Ready to wave my worries good-bye/ Give me my wings/ I'm ready to ride away/ Ready to leave my troubles behind/ What's over my head will soon be under my feet/ Give me my wings. "WIngs" 4Him**
Severus Snape stalked through the halls emanating a strange sense of malicious intent. Namely, he was not extremely happy. Then again, was he ever a very happy person? That was something to think about. Had he ever been content with life? No times sparked any memory of being delighted with the lot he was given. None at all could bear a resemblance of being ecstatic over something or someone. He growled to himself. That only succeeded in spooking Mrs. Norris, who had been lurking behind a statue nearby and did nothing to ease the angry cloud of gloom that hung over his head.
It was all Andy's fault, of course. Who else could he blame for making him miserable? She was the only one that had successfully made him dismal after all these years. She had a way with that, being one of the few people who could really piss him off despite his cold exterior. He cursed her under his breath. It was a hopeless thing to do, but he did it any way. It was always easier to hurt your enemies when they were down. He paused. She wasn't exactly his enemy, but the word worked for now. She just had to go and try to get her self killed. Again. No, it wasn't the first time. It never was the first with Andy. She had the natural Gryffindor stupidity to throw herself into any situation without a thought about her wellbeing. Damn her!
Snape stomped into his rooms. She wasn't his problem any more. Poppy had returned from her brief vacation to the Mediterranean Coast. The Mediwitch would take care of her now. He grabbed the trunks that he had packed earlier and placed a quick levitating spell on them. To be able to relax and take a well needed, peaceful vacation would do him some good. He needed to be away from all the people in the world. He wanted to be alone, by himself for once. Crowds were never a favorite of his despite the fact that he worked in school. People irked him with their troglodytic ways. They did not understand the subtleties of intelligence or when to be quiet. He would have liked to bolt a few mouths shut though regulations did not allow him to. He made his way out of the nearly empty castle, almost running into a harried looking Black and Lupin. It was a pleasure to sneer at them as he disappeared from view.
His house was empty as he left it. Not a creature stirred in its solemn depths. He liked it that way: empty, lifeless, soulless. No, not soulless. There were too many memories attached to the building to leave it without a soul. He dropped the trunk by the front door with a shake of his head. His hair was getting rather shaggy again, he noticed absently. It would have to be trimmed. The house felt different. That could not be good. He paced through the lifeless corridors searching for something that would have changed the atmosphere. There was nothing that he could find that had a chance of being wrong. Maybe he just had not been here for a while. Yes, that must be it.
He brewed himself a mug of tea with a flick of his wand. It was strong and black, just the way he liked it. His opinion of coffee was the same. Beverages tasted the best plain and simple. He took the forest green mug and relaxed for a moment in an arm chair in his living room. Snape took a sip of the tea, finding it to be the right temperature for drinking. He peered over the rim at the monolithic grand piano in the middle of the room.
It was his pride and joy. The instrument was a Steinway Grand. No baby grand would do for him. It was black, shiny, and sang like a symphony choir. He had gotten it used, but the condition was wonderful. After a few coats of polish and getting it tuned, the instrument was in rare condition. It was then he noticed what felt wrong: there was something sitting on the bench.
He used the term 'something' loosely. The something looked like a ghost, slightly more substantial and in full color. Unfortunately for him, the features were completely recognizable. "You just don't give up, do you, McGee? You always find someway to ruin my life, don't you?"
The shade look up, translucent fingers tracing unheard patterns over the keys. He gasped soundlessly. It was Andy's soul most definitely. Her image seemed to appear as she had before she was imprisoned in Azkaban. Her face was fuller, younger with searching dark eyes and a long braid of golden hair trailing down her back. A few errant wisps strayed over her sad smile. She brushed them away with a careless wave of her hand. "You used to play so beautifully. You would play for me sometimes when I asked you to. It was always classical music, never the modern pieces. Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Haydn, Vivaldi, Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky…Never the happy ones, always the darker, dreary pieces," the shade nodded to herself. "Yes, I played too, but never as well you did. Will you play for me, Sev? One more time, before I go away? The keys won't work for me. They'll sing for you."
His brow furrowed deeply. Where had she come from? Better yet, how had she gotten here? Why the hell had she come for him? It would have been more likely that she would have gone to find Black and Lupin than him. "Why me?" he muttered under his breath.
"Because you understand."
"I understand? Once again, you fail to make any sense, McGee."
She said nothing in return, only staring at him with those dark, pain-filled eyes. "Please."
The Slytherin set down his tea mug and stood up. The shade did not move from her seat. "If I am to play, you must remove yourself from the bench."
"Thank you." Andy's soul floated off the seat.
Snape stretched his fingers and set them down on the keys. He had missed the instrument dearly. The one at Hogwarts has always been less superior. What to play for a ghost? He hit a few notes, not knowing what song they came from. The tune was recognizable once he thought about it. Moonlight Sonata, Beethoven. It was a slow piece, but gorgeous in its own right. The streams of silver starlight without the glow from an invisible moon had reminded him off it. He let his fingers play the notes, not concentrating on them. It was easier that way. The less he concentrated, the better the song sounded.
The melody weaved itself through the air intertwining with harmonizing bass. Snape let his mind lose itself in the notes. He let his fingers play what they knew was right until they hit the final, triumphant chords. He paused, his fingers caressing the ivory keys one final time before he looked up. The shade had disappeared…
Andy had felt the curse hit her square between the shoulder blades. Her feet lost all response and she had fallen hard on the side walk below though she had not felt it. The curse had begun to work by then. Her soul slowly peeled itself away from every tiny crevice in her body. It seeped out and reformed in the air above her. The only coherent thought she could remember was 'is that me down there?' The full impact had yet to register in what was left of her mind.
She had floated upward toward the sun. It felt free, like she was a small bird soaring in the heaven above. The farmlands below were a chess board and she was the queen with power to go anywhere and everywhere. Andy spread her wings and flew.
It had taken her a long while to finally realize that she normally could not fly and should not by any means be floating freely above the ground without anything holding her up. It had taken her a few moments beyond that to come to the idea that if she was able to do such a thing then she might be dead. The thought made perfect sense to her jangled state of mind. She certainly had enough unfinished business to take care of. It was impossible to know for sure. She certainly did not feel like a ghost. Andy pondered the thought before she dismissed it. How else could it be explained? There were probably other explanations but they seemed insignificant at the moment.
She let herself fall back down to earth like a feather floating in the breeze. There was no where she had to be and no specific people she had to meet with that she knew of at the moment. If there were any to begin with, she had most likely forgotten about them.
The street she landed in was filled with people who seemed to ignore her very existence. That was to be expected, she decided glumly. She had better get used to it. Over to her left sat an old man on a park bench eating a sandwich and feeding a nearby flock of pigeons. Andy sat morosely next to him, laying her head in her hands. It was useless to do anything else. No one knew she was dead or if she was really dead. She would not give up her hopes yet.
Invisible tears crept down her cheeks into pools in her translucent palms. There would be no more Andromeda Josephine McGee in this world. They would have to learn to live without her. They had done it for years before when she had been in Azkaban. She had a feeling that it would not be too difficult for then to do. She had only been back for a bit over a year. Damn it! She cursed the world and everyone in it that had decided to make her life miserable.
"There, there, dear, don't cry," the man sitting next to her spoke soothingly as he tossed another crumb to the birds. "Men are never worth it. My wife told me that once. We were together for over fifty years before she passed away, said she only married me because I was a gentleman."
"It isn't men that's my problem," she replied in an indirect mumble. "Well, it was a problem, but we solved it or at least attempted to."
"Then if it's not relationships, what else can there be to trouble you? World hunger can't cause that many tears."
Andy turned her head to look up at him, snapping sarcastically. "My problem is that I think I'm dead."
"Oh, really?" he threw another chunk of the bread to his waiting flock. "And how did you come to that conclusion?"
"There was an attack and I ran into the fray of it and got cursed and then I was flying and ended up here. I think the curse killed me."
He nodded thoughtfully. "I think that you might have a problem though I can tell you that you are definitely not dead."
"What did you say?"
"I said that you are not dead. It was quite clear and concise actually. I took all my pills this morning, I know I'm comprehensible enough for normal people to hear me."
Andy kept her opinion that this man had no clue what he was talking about it to herself. "How did you come to the conclusion that I'm not dead?" Her voice wavered as she asked the question.
"It's rather a quite simple answer, my dear. You see, if you were dead, you would be a ghost and ghosts are naturally white and shades of grey, not colored as you are. So therefore you cannot be a ghost, and are not dead."
"If I'm not dead, then what am I?"
He looked at her with a cocked head. "You're a soul or a shade of a living person."
"What does that mean exactly?"
"It means that your body is somewhere out there and waiting for you to return to it."
"Really?"
"Yes, really," the man sounded exasperated with her. "It's simple actually, if you were cursed there are a few that can separate the soul from the body. Some of them are extremely lethal and cannot be reversed. But since you are talking to me and still are capable of emotion then you must be not completely dead."
"So I'm mostly dead?"
"If that's how you wish to put it, then yes, mostly dead."
"Oh. Can I come back to life?"
"If you find your body before you fade away, you can."
"Thank you, sir, you have been a huge help."
"You're welcome, my dear girl. I hope you find your body soon."
"I shall try to," Andy floated off the park bench feeling lighter than she had when she landed. She did not know how long it had been, but it had been long enough. It did not occur to her why the man knew about souls and shades and curses, but honestly she did not care. She was going home.
The man watched her go with a shake of his head. It was a pity that the younger generation could get away with things like this. He stood up and disappeared down the street. The paper bag that he had been feeding the pigeons from was left in a trash bin nearby. All that was left of their passing was a few left over crumbs and the remaining birds pecking away at them.
{Author's Note: The Moonlight Sonata is a very pretty piece to play. I like Beethoven. He's fun. The 'mostly dead' thing came Princess Bride, which is an awesome movie. I know this was short chapter, but as I said this is production week of our play, entitled I Never Saw Another Butterfly, for those of you wondering. It's a rather depressing Holocaust based play, but it's interesting, especially considering my boyfriend and I are the Father and Mother of the main character. The drama teacher has been teasing us incessantly since she realized that we were going out. Oh, well. C'est la vie.
Kary Starr: How long has it been since I heard from you? Methinks too long. Ah, well. Suck it up and deal with it. So you're planning on disemboweling me if I don't put Andy and Snape together? Sounds like fun though you did not say with what. I honestly have no clue what's going to happen in the end. I know Snape gets snogged some time in the future and Sirius almost dies if that helps a bit. But then Andy gets pissed at Snape for some unforeclosed reasons and Sirius gets pissed at Andy for close to the same reasons so things are twisted up pretty bad. Oh, here's Snape. He'll be playing a bigger part later on. And he is hot so why wouldn't he be before? You are reviewer 100 on Second Chances by the way. I thought you might be thrilled by that.
Anna Black: Close, but no cookie for you.
Shasa Perino: I'm sorry that you are in a bad mood. I don't mind being flamed. No one has ever flamed me yet. Nope, not the Chamber of Secrets. I was tempted, but no.
Angelkas: The symbol Ravenclaw is an eagle, not a raven. It's good idea. I think you're the closest right now. The poem honestly makes perfect sense to me, especially the statue part.
VMorticia: I'm glad someone liked my creep factor. I reread that chapter and it sort of gave me chills. I did? If I say something, I don't necessarily go through with it. I only remember saying that it was going to get darker. Yes, you can have a cookie any way, despite the fact that no one has gotten the obvious point. It's not the CoS or Romania, though that would make things interesting. I might have them end up in Romania for the hell of it though. It would make things amusing.
Atheis Gainsborough: I had to put some comic relief in that chapter since it was getting rather dark, so Sirius picked that part up. I like your approach. Don't even bother to try to figure it out. Darn, that means, I have to do some work on figuring it out myself.
Sora G. Silverwind: Marching Band is over, but production week is going on so I'm at school almost 24-7. Hopefully when that is done, I'll be set and have time to write. The poem makes no sense to me either and I wrote it. I'm still not sure where exactly the treasure is hidden yet though I have ideas.
Iggie: Yes, Gaff tape. That's okay, I understand bad days very well.
Dy: Thanks!
Jynx: I plan to get more onto Andy's side of what is happening. I have two very conflicting ideas about it right now and I don't know which is going to happen. That might just mean that I have to write them down, doesn't it?
Peace, Love, and Toe Socks, Nataly Ravenlock}