Disclaimer: Not mine, all respects paid.
A/N: Once more, a devout thanks to beta Trinka and my readers and reviewers – it's always a pleasure to get your thoughts! Please enjoy!
Allies and Enemies: I
Anthony Zabini eyed the ruined manor topping the neglected, overgrown hill in front of him and once again cursed the over-confidence that had led to his being here. What had possessed him to Apparate to the Ministry and leave his wand behind this evening? Yes, he had only meant to go find a few papers and return home, but a wizard should always have his wand…
…as the two well-muscled, white-masked and heavily-robed men at his back were pointedly reminding him, the sharp ends of their wands politely lodged between his ribs and digging deeper holes as they voicelessly urged him to start walking again. Zabini debated resisting, knowing his physical condition was well up to the task of sprinting through darkened alleys and streets until he could hide and then Apparate to safety. But an instinct more powerful than intellect drove his feet to obey their commands and start ascending the broken stone steps of a once-fine garden. He was a man who gave a lot of orders, and the gloating, arrogant confidence with which these men – who were, after all, merely lackeys for some greater power – had delivered theirs told him that they had some kind of insurance that made their plan absolutely failsafe.
And the Death Eaters were no strangers to murder, he already knew. So he walked, back straight and head level, weighing the probability that they would not want to risk exposing themselves by killing one of Britain's pre-emminent business wizards against the knowledge that men like Lord Voldemort tended to simply dispose of those who would not obey his commands.
For Zabini had no intention of bowing to the self-proclaimed lord's wishes. He had never met the man himself, only a few of his followers perhaps more than a decade ago, when they had come oozing charm and oiled obeisance to ask for financial support from the owner of a European-wide economic empire. Zabini had turned them away after fifteen minutes of listening to their drivel. Their nonsense and propaganda about purity of blood and race eugenics had earned only his contempt, not the support they needed, and as Nobby had closed the door on their heels, Zabini had never expected to hear from them again. There were always a few wizards who made a fuss about bloodline, chaste magic and the negative influence of Muggle-borns on the wizarding world. They were, in the main, largely ignored and so passed through the world with a great deal of noise and no visible effect.
Except this Lord Voldemort, who had been steadily kidnapping his customers for several years, who seemed to have an eternity of patience and appeared to have amassed a considerable following, no matter what his ideals. There were rumors of giants and werewolves and of wizards and witches flocking to his banner from every inhabited continent. Instead of a blind megalomaniac, Anthony Zabini was preparing to meet a far worse foe – a rational, logical, patient mind utterly convinced of a falsehood so vast it wrapped around madness to come at sanity from the other side.
His thoughts had carried them up the hill, and the house looked even worse on closer inspection as a pair of guards clipped out gruff questions. His captors apparently had the right answers, for after a few monosyllabic replies, the double doors in front of him were pushed open to the sound of much squealing of hinges and he was shoved up a creaking staircase to a long corridor.
At the end of this dank hallway, light shafted across a decaying carpet and mildew-rotted wall from the far room. He obeyed the wood prodding him and started towards it, feeling neither dread nor fear, but a peculiar tightness that he recognized as his body's anticipation of swift action. He would not leave this house in a coffin if he could help it. After all, a wand wasn't a normal wizard's only tool – a fact his colleagues often forgot – and he was far from a normal wizard.
Drawing level with the room, Zabini stopped dead, staring in surprise. In contrast to the unsteady state of the rest of the house – which seemed ready to collapse at the first hint of a stiff breeze – this room was flawlessly decorated, a sense of power and wealth drenching teak and cherry furniture, velvet drapes and satin couches and armchairs. The light in the room came from regularly-spaced, flickering sconces and a huge, marble fireplace currently roaring with orange flame. He estimated it could comfortably seat at least a dozen, with standing room for another twelve to fifteen.
But there was only one man seated there now, facing the fire as Zabini stepped onto the plush green rug, felt the wood withdraw from his back, and heard the door close solidly behind him. At the sound of the click of the latch, the figure rose and Zabini's muscles tensed, ready to fight or fly.
But the man who turned to face him, white-blond hair reflecting the glow of the flame and making it look as if his hair were afire was not the lord that Anthony Zabini had expected, and he froze as his thoughts vanished, eyes seeing the image before his face and wishing they were not. A man he had spent half a year searching for, a man he had trusted and needed as a brother…the man who had betrayed him and everything they had once held dear…
When his voice returned, he exhaled in a hoarse whisper: "Abraxas Malfoy?"
888
The sound of her song had gone straight to his spine, sending chills rippling outward and covering his arms and legs with goosebumps, even under the warm layers of his robes. As nature retracted, reverting to the winter world that had existed before her premature introduction of spring, Snape felt his soul longing to come out of his mouth, and so he had opened his lips to let it.
His voice was an instrument he rarely used, prefering his expertise at clarinet, but lacking the woodwind it would do to raise his long-unused cords to the stars with the rest of the world around them, coaxing forth the mistress of such glorious sound.
And now the quiet murmur of nature swallowing what it had produced was the only noise amongst the iced trees, the four of them breathing clouds over one another as they waited for the others to answer the mutual question: "What are you doing here?"
It was Klytemnestra who broke the silence first, although it was not to answer the query but merely add another after much twisting about in circles and craning her neck. "Where is Kassandra?" Her voice was hard, angry and unyielding as she continued the scan the darkened trees. Both Gryffindor witches glanced towards her in cautious surprise, Lily's green eyes betraying confusion, Hermione's dark brown eyes cool with mistrust.
The young woman from the future wondered at the wisdom of revealing herself in light of Klytemnestra's presence here. She could trust Lily with her life, and the blazing look on Snape's face, reminding her of the professor who had sent her here, had eradicated the six week of his withdrawal as if they had never been, but the Zabini girl… The dryad had seemed so sure when he had announced that her help had arrived…but did he mean Klytemnestra or only Snape and Lily? And would Klytemnestra, soaked to the bone in aristocracy and Slytherin tradition, be an ally, or a hindrance? Kassandra's music and the clarity of its intent had shaken the young woman badly, and she was disinclined to expose herself so completely again, especially to the girl's closest sibling.
"Where is Kassandra?" Klytemnestra repeated urgently, but Hermione thought she could detect a hint of disappointment now underlying the other emotions in the question. Disappointment at Hermione for not replying, the wild-haired witch wondered, or was the mixture of anger and deep disapproval directed elsewhere?
Either way, Klytemnestra Zabini had to be held at arm's length until the Gryffindor knew where she stood. She might be here to finish that which her twin had been interrupted in doing. Hermione spoke steadily, voice cold as the winter air seeping through their cloaks. "I don't know." She pointed to the tangle of trees where she had last seen the younger twin. "She was standing over there and her horn was in the snow – I suppose she dropped it when the branches stopped her from deliberately causing me harm."
Hermione expected the other witch to spark angrily at the accusation, the Italian temper of her father coming to the fore to berate Hermione for the carelessness of her tone, to leap to the defense of the family she held so dearly. And indeed, all of these emotions and more crossed the girl's face, a fractured kaliedoscope of feelings and logic twisting mouth and eyebrows, eyes narrowing. But instead of heat and the commanding dominance that seemed to come so easily to her clan, submission surfaced as the black-crowned head drooped and her shoulders rounded in an almost shameful stance, making the slender girl look younger, smaller and vulnerable.
"I am sorry," Klytemnestra said quietly. It was not a mumbled apology, for all its low volume, and Hermione felt an abrupt wrench in her gut at this unexpected turn of character. The other girl was being sincere. Klytemnestra took a deep breath, and with the exhale, she lifted her head again, turned and started towards the trees to inspect the area where Hermione had last seen her twin.
"Are you all right?" Lily asked Hermione quietly as Klytemnestra was engaged in studying the snow.
"I think so," Hermione said slowly, uncertain what to tell them after the dryad's announcements of rulership and the need to use her talent to battle Voldemort. The tree spirit's appearance and unexpected declarations were almost as traumatic as the events that had summoned this triad into the winter night. "I have no idea where Kassandra Zabini is, though, or why she came out here with Lucius Malfoy."
"Malfoy?!" Lily and Snape spat together. Their mutual hatred was evident in the venemous way they pronounced his name, and they eyed each other with some ironic amusement following this disgusted cry.
"Yes, Malfoy. They were…" Hermione hesitated, trying to recall the immediate fear their presence and music had summoned up in her. "They were – it felt like they were trying to…to isolate me. It was almost strangling…" her gloved fingertips touched her throat as she recalled the panicked constriction of her voice. "But I don't know what for, or how they knew I would be here."
"Do you suppose it's about what we saw earlier tonight?" Snape asked quietly.
"You mean at Slughorn's dinner? But they didn't say anything," Hermione replied, frowning.
"Clearly, they didn't have to. Maybe they had it arranged beforehand."
"What happened at dinner?" Lily asked with a frown. She had seen the twins sit down together, flagrantly ignoring the rest of the Slytherin contingent.
Hermione shrugged. "We don't know, really. But in spite of her flagrant show of disdaining Lucius Malfoy's company for the past six weeks, they had some kind of..." she trailed off, unable to find words to express what they had witnessed.
"'Understanding' is, I believe, the polite way of phrasing it," Snape finished dryly.
"What kind of 'understanding'?" Lily pressed.
"One that, theoretically, would have led them to being here tonight," Snape answered.
Silence descended as the three of them digested this, and finally Klytemnestra came tramping back through the powder. Her black eyes locked with Hermione's, and she appeared not at all to like what she had found. Nevertheless, manners took precedence. "Thank you. The imprint of the horn is indeed there, along with three different sets of shoeprints." A beat and then, "Did you see anyone else here with her?"
"Malfoy," Snape told his cousin instantly. They shared a look that surpassed loathing at the mention of the name, Klytemnestra's disappointment and evident betrayal etched on her face.
"Small wonder she has not waited for us to be her welcoming committee," the Slytherin witch muttered, kicking the snow. But when her focus returned to Hermione, her manner had resumed the calm of her upbringing, though the easy arrogance she carried daily remained at bay.
"My sister has violated every commandment our family holds dear, in addition to several Ministry and Wizengamot laws. I recognized what she was playing, and I think I could sense why…" The witch swallowed her pain and released a silent sigh. "Do you know where they might have gone? My father must be told – and she removed from Hogwarts. What she did tonight is fantastically dangerous, as well as significantly lacking in common sense, and an abhorrent breach of protocol, especially in regards to another musician such as yourself." Klytemnestra shook her head, and a look of old bitterness passed over her face. "Lucius Malfoy. I never thought she would be so abysmally foolish. She is a threat now – to herself and others." A pause and then, as Hermione's voice did not fill the gap, Klytemnestra whispered, "Please, Hermione, do you know where I can find her?"
The use of her given name gave the other girl pause. Klytemnestra's pleading tone made her genuine concern for her sister only too plain, but the unyielding hardness to her voice as well as her words told a different story than mere sisterly affection and squabbles. Family shame, the Gryffindor realized suddenly. The family defended itself fiercely, but the actions of the daughter would cast a pall over the whole house if it became public knowledge. Hermione hesitated, slowly replaying in memory the events before her collapse, wanting to be as accurate as possible. She had seen Lucius Malfoy, and Kassandra Zabini, and the music had told her that there was a third member of the ambush, but she had not seen anyone else, and her fainting fit had kept her from hearing or seeing any avenue they might have used to escape…
"Might they have simply returned to the castle?" Lily offered. But before anyone could ponder this entirely likely solution, a different voice grated from near the massive oak tree:
"She sought to betray and found herself snared instead." The dryad addressed the group for the first time, moving forward slightly in a rustle of leaves and creaking wooden joints. All four pairs of eyes landed on him squarely, three widening in shock as the tree spirit moved into the moonlight and they could define his shape from the trees, his form oddly out of place, his figure belonging to a world of stories.
"Who are you?" Snape asked, suspicion rife in his voice as his hand went instantly to his wand and he moved forward to place himself between the three girls and this new, unknown and entirely alien-looking creature. Hermione checked his stride with a hand on his upper arm, fingers curling around his heavy cloak.
"It's all right, Snape. He's a friend."
"What makes you so sure?" Severus murmured, keeping one eye on the dryad even as he glanced down at her for confirmation.
But Klytemnestra did not have the patience for her cousin's instinctive paranoia in the face of losing her sister to some unknown force or person. "What do you mean, 'she found herself snared instead'?" she demanded.
"Exactly what I said, Daughter of Men. The girl's horn told of her impure intent, her desire to help two Sons of Men remove the Daughter of Creation by force, using music to turn her gift back on her. They failed, as the weak do when confronted with power that they cannot understand or control. The one who shares your bloodline was removed as her allies betrayed her, and used the binding spells meant for the Daughter of Creation against her instead."
888
"Surprised, 'Tony?" The blond stretched luxuriously as he asked the question, smiling warmly at the dumbstruck man in front of him, grey eyes glittering with humor.
"I knew you had turned your back on me. I had no idea you would go so far as to join this madman."
"Careful what you say about the Dark Lord," Malfoy said quietly, and Zabini could see that the warning was sincere. "He is not overly fond of being criticised." He waved for his one-time friend to seat himself with a friendly gesture.
"I will stand, thank you," Zabini said coldly. Malfoy shrugged and perched on the silver-cloaked arm of his chair.
"And, actually, I hadn't added our numbers to his force until about six weeks ago when he sought me out to present some of his views and request our alliegance. I know you stand against pureblood-only radicalism – what sane wizard doesn't? – but I think you might find the rest of what he has to say about music and the potential it has to serve mankind quite interesting. I did."
"Why in Merlin's name do you think I would have any desire to listen to you?" Zabini asked quietly. The question was scathing for its disturbing lack of emotion, terrifying in its flatness, and it was clear from the distant look clouding the canny black eyes that Zabini was no longer seeing the dark wood-paneled walls around him. His memory had pulled the scene of a morning in late August before his vision.
He had entered the small caverns inhabited by the Keeper Concilium as the rising sun was gilding the late-summer trees in gold, expecting to be greeted by the sound of their morning salutation. Dead silence had fallen on his ears instead, and a hasty search had yielded Janco Mroczek lying on the ground in the barracks, red smeared in long streaks around him as he bled freely from a wound at his temple and another of their order was mending his clearly-broken arm.
The grim expressions on their faces had told him that this was no accident, and the few clustered on the far side of the room started for him as he entered, twisted looks that betrayed a hunger for revenge bending their faces out of joint as they reached for their instruments or opened their mouths.
"It's Anthony," he told them swiftly, his own hand reaching into his pocket for his wand. It would be a woefully inadequate defense against the musicians – most of whom he had trained himself over many years – but it would be better than nothing.
But to his relief, the instruments lowered, and the violent anger in their eyes had been instantly extinguished, returning to a haggard look comprised of exhuastion and immense personal pain. His insides seemed to fill with iron. These men that he had led for more than two decades had the worn, shell-shocked air of people scrambling to right themselves in a world abruptly turned upside-down. Wishing he wouldn't ask, knowing that he had to, he said gently, "What happened?"
When he received no reply, he focused on one of their youngest members standing in front of him and directed the question to him. "John? What happened?" He glanced about, instinctively seeking his second-in-command. "Where's 'Rax?"
The name snapped in the room like a whip, and every head jerked to him, loathing formenting in each pair of eyes. It blazed so strongly, Zabini thought he might be ill from the weight of palpable hatred seething against the stone walls. When John answered, his voice was rough with grief and disillusionment.
"He came here last night and was a different man. He said it was time to stretch our muscles, to stop living underground and acting like the gift we had been born with was a crime for which we had to atone. He – we…" here the younger man faltered, and Zabini heard the dry but steady voice of Mroczek take up the narrative.
"I argued with him. He wanted us to go out and demonstrate what music and magic could do together, breaking centuries' worth of laws and traditions." Mroczek coughed, spat blood out of his mouth, accepted water from the wizard who had just finished healing his arm, and continued. "He ordered me to join him or get out of his way. I refused." Mroczek glanced around and smiled wryly, wincing as throbbing pain lanced behind his eyes, briefly darkening his vision. "You can see the rest."
"Twenty of our order followed him, and they killed a dozen others in their escape," volunteered another voice raggedly.
Zabini righted a chair that had gotten the worse end of a battle with something and slumped into it, feeling it sag as it took his weight. Running a hand over his face, he looked to Mroczek. The man's eyes were lively, in spite of the alarming amount of crimson – fresh and dried – lodged in the creases of his face. He would survive, and Zabini was surprised at the strength of the feeling of his own gratitude that came with this knowledge. Janco Mroczek was the public face – such as a secret society could have – of the Keeper's Concilium, and had never made any bones about the fact that he thought two members of the wizarding elite had no right to be in charge of the ancient order. Zabini reflected ruefully that this event seemed to have proved his point. He had not been here, and Abraxas…his mild friend had clearly changed, and had now hijacked the Concilium for some purpose of his own.
"We tried to summon you, but Abraxas knows all the ways to communicate from within, and made sure we couldn't reach you."
"I'm sorry." The hoarse whisper had been wholly inadequate to convey the depth of his feeling, but no other words had found their way to his tongue, and the faces around him reflected his angry sorrow, expressions conveying what words could not.
And so the Keeper Concilium, the last remaining Order of Musician-Mages in the entirety of Europe, the order that had looked to him for twenty-three years for guidance and protection, had been sliced from forty-two to ten in the space of a night. They were battered and exhausted, and had no time to indulge in recovery. For Abraxas and the rogue members of the Concilium must be found, their power bound to them and permanently imprisoned, before they could do more harm.
The Prophet article in September about the use of music by those who counter-attacked both the Death Eaters and the innocent in Diagon Alley had nearly torn his heart in half. Part of him had cherished the hope that Abraxas would go to St. Mungo's and offer their immense talent for healing, that the wizarding world might, indeed, reconcile itself to the fact that music could be used for great good as well as tremendous evil.
But Abraxas Malfoy, top political figure at the Ministry, flawless moderate and consummate family man, could not expose himself as the right hand man in a music-playing order. And so he had kept his identity anonymous and violence had become his tool for glorying in the power of music.
"'Tony, Lord Voldemort has a ability to offer us freedom," Malfoy was saying, and Zabini wrenched himself back to the dark house and plush room surrounding his physical body by dent of much effort. "Real freedom. The right to play, to learn, to use what we are born with. The ability to grow, to branch out, to help other musicians discover themselves. In the Muggle world, there's a whole industry based on music. And I don't mean the strictly-controlled noise that the Ministry censors before putting on WWN. I mean the real thing. Symphonies, 'Tony. Orchestras. Wouldn't you like your daughters, or that young nephew of yours to have the opportunity to enthrall audiences?"
"Leave my family out of this," Zabini ordered. No flicker of emotion touched his black eyes, but the command sent a chill down Malfoy's back. He had known Anthony Zabini since the Sicilian had stepped out of the Immigrants' Apparition Office in the Ministry twenty-five years ago, and had spent hours a day and weeks at a stretch in his company, but the smooth politician had never heard this tone of voice. It was the voice of a rational man suppressing feelings so strong they might find their outlet in locking around someone's neck and slowly, thoroughly, completely dispassionately, throttling them.
"I can't believe you're not even willing to think about it," Malfoy returned irritably, recovering his footing. "It's irrational. What're a few ideals you don't even have to believe in compared to what we can accomplish when Voldemort topples the Ministry? Hell, 'Tony, you can even expand your business – whole markets that have gone unexplored because of their intolerance!"
"I have one fortune. I don't need a second one," Zabini returned icily. "And somehow, all I can see when I listen to you talk about 'freedom' and 'opportunity' is Janco Mroczek – who was supposed to be your friend and brother – lying in the dust pouring blood after you attacked him."
"He was in the way. I gave him a choice," Malfoy flipped a careless hand.
"And Diagon Alley? Was that also in the way?"
"We went there to challenge the Death Eater attack," Malfoy snapped angrily, mood changing instantly at the scathing scorn in Zabini's voice. "But, of course, having been cloistered and never allowed to expand our talents in the field of, say, dueling, there were a few civilian casualties. We were proving a point – that music has great power that can be placed at man's disposal."
"I would say you proved it marvelously," Zabini snapped back. "I play music. I own music. I send music to people all over the continent. But when I heard what the rest of the Concilium had to say, Malfoy, I hated myself. And when I read the Prophet's account of the Diagon Alley disaster, I despised the art I had spent a lifetime striving to perfect. I hated the fact that I had encouraged – driven – all my children to play. I hated that I led you all to that massacre. You, single-handedly, have justified everything the Ministry has ever feared about music and magic."
Malfoy's eyes had grown harder as Zabini talked, and as the shorter Italian finished, the tall blond rose, shrugging his shoulders in a gesture of careless resignation and starting to pace. "As you wish. I'm sorry that you're not more amenable to our way of thinking."
"You were delusional to think that I would ever want to see you again anywhere but Azkaban."
Silence descended, and Zabini waited. He had refused. Would he meet the Dark Lord, who would threaten him with death if he would not comply, or would he be released?
The next statement Malfoy threw out as his circuit of the room brought him close to a darkened window was casual, almost as if the last exchange had not taken place. "You were summoned tonight because the Dark Lord requires a conductor for his orchestra."
Orchestra? Zabini knew that some of his panic had translated to his suddenly-rigid stance, for Malfoy saw the abrupt shift in position in the window glass and turned with a smirk.
"Oh, yes. What with the musicians the Dark Lord has been capturing for several years and the added ranks of almost half the Concilium, he has amassed a sizable group of the best musicians the Western World has to offer. But he seeks the best to lead it." The supple voice shifted to friendly, seductive. "You are, undeniably, the best musician in Europe and probably the entire planet. Who should do the job, if not you?"
Zabini knew he was being offered a large slice of power within the organization as well as the chance to do what he had wanted since he was old enough to pronounce the word. But the thought gave him no pleasure as his lips twisted in grim amusement. The best, was it? He doubted it. Mroczek had been sent to investigate Hogwarts during the fall term when a musician or group of musicians were causing the school wards to fail (Zabini had been praying that it was Malfoy and the rogue Concilium – there were few better places to hide than the countryside surrounding the wizarding school). But Mroczek had told him on his return that he had instead encountered a young witch of thirteen who was the source of the problem.
A Gryffindor named Hermione Granger who was also the Node for the age, capable of tapping such incredible musical power that one note could scatter even this orchestra of experts into the wind. The first such witch born since the power had been concentrated in the hands of an individual. Malfoy's bribe suddenly looked distinctly less tempting.
"No."
"The Dark Lord does not like to hear that as an answer," Malfoy snapped. "Please, 'Tony, don't make this harder on yourself than you have to."
Zabini took a deep breath, the understanding that he would not leave the mansion alive sinking through him. He wished briefly that he had gone to bid Elizabeth goodbye tonight. But he would not bend his knee to this racist, violent lord.
"The answer stands."
"Your friend was afraid that would be your unconditional reply," said a cold voice behind him. Zabini startled and jerked around to see the owner. He hadn't even heard the door open.
This was clearly Lord Voldemort. He had black hair, black eyes shot through with occasional, disturbing, flecks of red and wore entirely midnight robes that swept over his feet. These stood in stark contrast to the almost corpse-pale quality of his skin, and Zabini recoiled both from the sight and feeling of malevolence that draped over the lord as thickly as his cloak.
Following the Dark Wizard came a burly man, clutching a bound captive with long, dreadfully familiar, shining – if tousled – black curls. Voldemort's long hand tucked under her chin and wrenched her neck around, and Zabini found the bottom of his world dropping from underneath him as he looked into the tear-stained face of his youngest daughter.
Her desperate, "Father!" was distinctive even against the gag shoved in her mouth.
"Kassandra?" He glared at the most dangerous wizard in all of the Isles, the heat previously submerged in forced calm scorching the barrier of propriety to ash and rushing into his clenched fists, his voice simmering. "How dare you lay hands on one of my daughers? Let her go!"
Voldemort arched one pencil-thin eyebrow. "That is, of course, up to you, Mister Zabini. Will you conduct my orchestra? If you do, she will be safe."
The thin shoulders rose and fell carelessly. "If you don't, she dies."
888
Stillness had followed the dryad's solemn words, but it was broken again when Klytemnestra whispered, "And? Where did they take her? Where did she go? How do we get her back?"
The dryad tilted his head for a moment and listened to wind. "As for where she is, I cannot answer, for my roots know only this forest and these mountains. All I can tell you with certainty that she is not here."
"Voldemort," Hermione said softly. The dryad narrowed his liquid eyes at her, but she ignored his displeasure.
"What? Why?" Lily asked in confusion. "What do you mean, 'Voldemort'?"
"Your twin was taken to Voldemort," Hermione repeated, looking at Klytemnestra. The absolute weight of her certitude sank into the other girl as lead in a lake.
"How do you know?"
"Voldemort has been capturing musicians," Snape answered suddenly, and turned to his cousin in a gesture of abrupt remembrance. "Remember the article in the Prophet about the people that he has kidnapped? You told me they were all musicians. Malfoy obviously knew that Kassandra was one…"
"And we know he has access to instruments because Lily and I saw Lucius Malfoy with one going into Knockturn Alley," Hermione interjected. She frowned at Snape. "Voldemort is kidnapping musicians?"
"Yes," Klytemnestra answered for him.
"I didn't see that in the Prophet," Lily countered.
"That's because the fools at the Prophet don't know the thread that connects them all," Klytemnestra replied distractedly, mind whirring ahead. "They just think he's making random intellectuals at the tops of their various fields disappear but…" she exhaled heavily, and wavered suddenly as if she were going to collapse, looking very pale and cold in the starlight. Snape took her elbow, encouraging her indirectly to lean on him, which she gratefully did, his solidity abruptly making him look older in the face of her vulnerability. She looked to Hermione after further musing and said slowly, "But how do you know that Malfoy would take Kassandra to Voldemort?"
Because I know what I must do and why I was sent here and now to learn it. Because it is my turn to master my power and destroy that which Voldemort seeks to become. Because I know what Malfoy is and what he will become. A ruthless man with a hunger for power that outstrips all of his other ambitions. Because it's almost impossible that he hasn't taken the Mark by now, that his interest in me was purely for the sake of his master, and he has no use for Kassandra except as a stepping stone to his place at Voldemort's side. "Because he spent all of the first term bothering me. I'm a thirteen-year-old Gryffindor who's all brains and no looks, so clearly, it was about something else – like musical talent. But Malfoy had no way of knowing that I have an inclination for music, which means someone must have told him. Someone who is seeking musicians and has no problem with taking what he wants, and who is willing to patiently acquire them one murdered family at a time over the course of several years. I would say Voldemort fits that bill."
"You seem to have a rather informed opinion of him," Klytemnestra said, and now it was her turn to be suspicious. "He hasn't been a high-profile figure for more than eighteen months."
"Just because it doesn't happen in America doesn't mean we don't read about it. Our foreign correspondence has been full of reports on him for the past two or three years. If those publicized disappearances are all musicians, then the pieces of the puzzle fit," Hermione lied without pausing for breath or thought. It briefly occurred to her to be proud of her improving skills to cover all the knowledge she had that was so out of time, but all she felt was relief that no one questioned this story.
Fortunately, apart from a few muttered wishes that the Prophet would report as diligently as their opposite number across the Atlantic, they left off the subject of her convienent knowledge and returned to the greater problem: what were they going to do about it?
"I suppose Magical Law Enforcement is out of the question," Lily mused. All three of them snorted in response – Klytemnestra and Snape with the contempt that all powerful families have for those who keep order and Hermione with a cynicism born of having watched them fail again and again in her own time.
"Are you eager to reserve yourself a room in Azkaban for the rest of your life?" Klytemnestra asked. Lily arched an eyebrow at the older girl, green eyes glittering with irritation. She did not trust or like the pureblood twins, especially as the last month had illuminated their medieval attitudes that were cherished by so many of their class. Her willingness to help the Slytherin find her sister did not extend to tolerating her superiority.
"It was a thought," she returned coldly. Klytemnestra looked as if she would like to respond, but Snape gently squeezed her arm where she still clung to him and she held her silence.
Thought absorbed the cold night for a moment before the quiet chill was broken once more by the rough sound of wood-on-wood that characterized the dryad's speech.
"I submit that what you stand here considering is the wrong question, Daughters and Son. Your talents, the confluence of your lives, the presence of the Daughter of Creation indicates a larger destiny to be yours. Look beyond the petty details to the whole – you are here to rule and to mend, not merely rescue. The world is out of joint, the balance of nature tested by the Other. To contort it further, he has taken one you love and value. But she is not the only one who matters. There are many other lives you might save or destroy." His dark gaze swept over them sternly. "It is for you to restore the scale of Life to even measure."
At the first gravelly word, their attention snapped to him like four fired arrows, and they listened gravely. But the silence that penetrated their bones as his last words faded in the air was loaded with no small measure of confusion, green and black gazes swapping non-physical shrugs as they tried to absorb the cryptic command.
"What does it mean to 'restore the scale of Life to even measure'?" Snape finally asked. "What balance? And how has the balance been upset?"
"The balance is the music of all living things, and as such it encompasses and connects the entire world, Son of Earth. The Daughter of Creation was born to defend this delicate dance – the balance between music, magic and earth. Light and Dark, Night and Day, Summer and Winter, Birth and Death are the symbols on the scale. The Other has distorted it, and will only warp it further in his quest for those things that are denied to men." The liquid eyes focused steadily on Klytemnestra. "Your sister has, in all likelihood, been added to the weapons working in his favor. Removing her from his employ will help you, but it will not solve the problem. His use of music in every realm of life must be halted."
The four stared at him, and it was Snape again who voiced their collective, immediate response. "Surely there is someone better to accomplish this task than four students?"
The dryad tilted his head at them. "Is there? Your world fears music, and has allowed that fear to strangle and cripple it, outlawing the whole in ignorance instead of seeking the knowledge that would lead them to freedom. But I sense no fear in you. Curiosity. Wariness. Caution. All laudable traits when brokering in a power that you do not know. But you are not afraid to learn, to try, or to defy the laws made by men. Only talented musicians who are willing to undertake the journey on the difficult road of true understanding can accomplish what must be done. There is no argument as to your abilities, and combined with your courage, they make you the cure to the world's ailment. Kings and nations will fall before the Other, but if you unlock the secrets of your magic, you will stand victorious before him."
"But still, why us?" Lily asked in a baffled tone. "Why not other musicians?"
"Because no other musicians stand with the Node. She has chosen you – whether on purpose or subconciously – to rise with her as her champions."
"What is a Node?" Snape asked swiftly, seeking the answer at the middle of what seemed a long riddle.
But Klytemnestra, silent through the dryad's calm delivery, had worked out this answer since she had first heard Hermione sing, and seen Mroczek's reaction to her – a moth drawn to the flame that would sear his wings and render him lifeless. She had known Janco Mroczek for all of her life, and there was only one human being who could inspire the awe and fear she had seen in his eyes. The music tonight that had filled her with beauty and dread had confirmed her suspicions, and the tree spirit had just put the finishing touches on her certainty. Her father had told her stories since she had been in her cradle, of ancient orders and musicians, their truth now shrouded by myth. And here she stood in the presence of one whom every witch and wizard for a millinium and a half had been seeking.
"Hermione Granger. You are the Safeguard of the Echo of Creation, aren't you?"
"I am," Hermione confirmed quietly, hoping that these two words would not trigger the secrecy curse that Mroczek had bound her to. But they seemed to be safe, for the moment passed in silence, the only change in the world the complete comprehension lighting Klytemnestra's features.
She looked directly into Hermione's chocolate-colored eyes and understanding passed between the two almost-women on a plane that the Gryffindor had never before experienced. The black eyes were warm with respect and unexpected loyalty, and the quiet, intense words following were almost unnecessary. "Forgive my sister, Hermione. She would never have attempted to challenge you had she known. Service to you runs in our blood, part of our tradition as surely as the instruments we have passed down for centuries. From now until you leave this Earth, you have the fidelity of my family. Our lives are dedicated to your pursuits in every arena, and we live to see you victorious on every battlefield. Everything we have, everything we are, is yours."