Disclaimer: Not mine, all respects paid to the rightful owners and thanks for letting me use their universe.
A/N: Thanks a million to my beta, Trinka. This chapter was a complete mess before she got in there and helped me restructure many a fragmented sentence. Enjoy!
Allies and Enemies: II
As the symphony of sound faded into the mountains, Dumbledore tore himself from his narrow window and strode for his door, ignoring the sharp pains as they subsided with every step he took. After the Diagon Alley Massacre, most of the students under his care would be terrified by this new appearance of obviously powerful music, though the first strains had carried all the sweetness of new-growing grass, of blossoming clover, of falling in love.
But the world around them had distorted, yielding to the demands of the girl's power as it had been challenged, and as he stepped out of his office to face the wide, worried eyes of Professors McGonagall and Slughorn as they raced up to him, he knew that the staff and their charges had reacted to the call of the seasons and the song that echoed life.
"Get everyone into the Great Hall," he ordered calmly before the questions formed behind their eyes could come off their tongues. He had learned long ago that along with his many duties as Headmaster came the weighty need to appear confident in every situation, to have an instant solution for even the worst of disasters, and that his employees required this exhausting omnipotence as much or more than the students who gazed at him with awed eyes.
The Heads of Slytherin and Gryffindor did not hesitate to comply, turning to match his swift pace, both of them visibly reassured by the unruffled exterior he projected, his false front becoming real as they reflected it.
Even so, his steps faltered as the triad swept down the main stairwell, and he encountered not the empty cavern he expected, but a mass of people so tightly packed that the Houses were running together in long strings of pyjama-clad and still-robed teenagers. Their teachers were trapped on the fringes of the throng, unable to penetrate the seething group and quell the fear that rolled almost palpably through the air.
As the uncomfortable echo of music was absorbed into the stones, heads began to turn en masse, as iron shavings follow a magnet, to where the three professors stood on the stairs. Dumbledore was grateful that Gryffindor and Slytherin had been two canny men with an understanding of the dynamics of power and physical placement, for in spite of the terror that tremored through the students, silence reigned supreme as they waited for the explanation to be rendered by the three that had appeared like royalty on the stairs.
To that end, Dumbledore first bestowed a slight smile, forcing it to sparkle in his eyes. He had learned long ago that a twinkle in his baby-blue gaze could diffuse a variety of situations – whether directed towards first-years or the most aged members of the Wizengamot. It didn't matter that the first syllables off his tongue would be lies. "First of all, a quick word of reassurance: nothing dangerous has happened. Hogwarts, her grounds, and, most importantly, all of you, are still completely safe. Now, quietly, allowing the youngest and smallest to go first, I would like the prefects and the Head Boy and Girl to help organize everyone in the Great Hall, where I will explain. Please divide by Houses so that your Heads can count you and ensure that each and every one of you is here. We will be sleeping in there tonight, so make yourselves comfortable."
The measured, deliberate voice in which he spoke smoothed over the choppy waves of emotion and turmoil raised by the sound, and with efficiency, the prefects and the Head Boy and Girl set about their tasks, helping their teachers, settling comforting arms around eleven-year-olds with tears streaming down their faces, shooing older students inclined to loiter through the great doors. As McGonagall started forward, Dumbledore held her briefly with a hand on her shoulder.
"Hermione Granger will not be here, Minerva."
McGonagall considered her employer and one of her dearest friends of many decades for a long moment and inclined her head in acknowledgement. She was intensely fond of her newest Gryffindor lioness, who was not only fiercely intelligent in her own right, but had encouraged the blossoming Lily Evans' mind as well, creating a formidable academic duo that had Gryffindor leading for the House Cup this year. But this did not blind her to the fact that there was far more to this so-called "American transfer student" than met the eye, and somehow she was unsurprised by the news. If Hermione was part of this disturbance, it explained much about the haywire state of Hogwarts since the autumn.
McGonagall continued down the stairs and Dumbledore watched her assist Frank Longbottom and the other three Gryffindor prefects in guiding the first and second years inside the massive double doors. Even through the whispers and the tears, a subtle sense of calm had soaked into the hall, seeping outward from him to pervade every corner, their certainty in him absolute.
The weight of their trust left the sick weight of terror in his abdomen. For what in the name of Merlin was he going to tell them?
888
His mouth was dry. His brain had stopped. His world was spinning widdershins on its axis. For a wizard who had spent twenty-five years dancing with unsurpassed skill on the quicksand of an extremely dangerous business and even more potent magical power, Anthony Zabini found himself utterly at sea, without a rudder and facing the black clouds of an impending hurricane.
"If you don't, she dies." Voldemort stood at his ease, looking as if he couldn't care less which way Zabini decided, provided that the Sicilian didn't take all night. There was power in that stance, the statement of life and death held so casually that was terrifying. This man would kill his daughter. And he would not lose a moment of sleep for doing so.
Zabini could not tear his eyes from the panicked obsidian of his youngest child, tears pouring from the black to coat the gag across her mouth with stinging salt, glossing her gaze iridescent like ravens' feathers in the fire light. He had no choices. This was the end of the road. The image of Elizabeth's proud, beautiful face, rent with grief as they covered their daughter with earth sent a shiver from the base of his spine to his throat, where it constricted painfully, making breathing impossible. He could not sacrifice his baby girl. As long as she was alive, he might still escape, or Voldemort might die…
"I'll do it," he whispered heavily, and bowed his head, unwilling to see the relief in Kassandra's eyes, knowing that keeping her life intact would cost the wizarding world, and the rest of his family, dearly.
"Excellent." A flick of Voldemort's wand bared Zabini's left arm to the elbow. The tanned man jerked away instinctively, covering the skin immediately. The Dark Lord reached out and deliberately clasped the business wizard's wrist in one pale hand, shoving the heavy, rich sleeve of Zabini's robe away with the other.
"Don't touch me. I have agreed to your demands, but I will not take your filthy scar," he snarled, twisting his wrist violently in an attempt to free himself. Voldemort's fingers tightened, their slenderness belying their strength as Zabini's bones pinched together painfully, the lord's alternately black-and-red gaze boring into the dark.
"I do not have partners whom I cannot communicate with, especially not those who require…persuasion to join us." His eyes and voice went brittle. "If you refuse the Mark, then I will have to consider your offer of cooperation invalid, and your daughter will be given to a friend of mine."
Humiliation and sorrow brought water to Zabini's eyes even as he clenched his jaw, his hand fisting as Voldemort released his arm. But though his nails bit crescent-holes into his palm, he left his arm extended and exposed, compliance engendered by the horror distorting Kassandra's fine features.
His teeth ground as Voldemort's wand tip touched his skin, and the fire of his branding began to burn.
888
"Thank you."
The words left Hermione's tongue without the permission of her brain, and the part of her that always stood by to observe noted that her voice sounded strange, weighted and older, like a lady accepting the courtly vow of a splendid knight. She felt her right hand lift of it's own accord, palm out, and as if she were planting it on a mirror, Klytemnestra's left came to meet it. Cold fingers almost exactly the same length, they met at the fingertips and slid together, pushing slightly, trading heat in a gesture of friendship and acceptance.
The dryad's first words pushed again to the forefront of her brain, tainting the sudden accord and kinship she felt with the Slytherin girl. "If you would rule..." For the first time in their acquaintance, Klytemnestra's black eyes held no calculation, no hidden agenda, no lurking questions. She had freely offered herself and her bloodline, and Hermione knew, gazing into the dark eyes, that she would fulfill her word if it meant walking to her death. The aristocratic witch had given Hermione a window to the ease with which the Muggle-born Gryffindor could command legions, and the thought turned her stomach even as it took shape in her mind. She swallowed hard, uncertain how to reciprocate the words of a fidelity so strong it had clearly transcended many generations, passed down with the heirlooms and crossing half the continent so that this sixteen-year-old witch could clearly state them in the middle of a Scottish forest. The intention behind the words was pure, but she could not blindly allow a peer to follow her because of tradition.
"I accept your oath," she continued gently, "But never as a servant." The young witch turned to face the dryad, who had moved to her left. "Our world is no longer one of masters and slaves. I am not a ruler, merely a fighter and, together, we can learn. Swear your loyalty not to me or to the magic I have unknowingly housed, but to the goal that we will choose, that you may stand the course even should I fail, your oath to serve humanity as best you can instead of merely one, frail, flesh-and-blood body."
Klytemnestra nodded her earnest approval. "My father once said a good Node would be one who did not spend life in search of a throne."
"Rest assured that a throne is the last thing I want," Hermione replied wryly.
A smile parted Klytemnestra's lips, but it was the dryad who proudly murmured, "Well said, daughters. Well said." His large eyes floated over the two younger students, standing stiff, frozen by their surprise and almost forgotten by both Hermione and Klytemnestra, their questions leashed only by their inability to choose which to launch into first.
"But I think that there are two here who do not have the wealth of information that the two of you possess," he reminded them gently. "The magic that you are both sworn to was lost in memory and swamped in legend long before such knowledge became forbidden. Perhaps now is the time to enlighten those who have not been gifted with extra knowledge?"
Hermione flushed, embarrassed both by her bout of forgetfulness and her inability to remedy either Snape or Lily's ignorance. She was unaccustomed to being forced into silence when she was in possession of knowledge – what use was knowing, when sharing was impossible? But she did not wish to court Mrozcek's wrath either. If he was, indeed, dangerous, there was no telling what kind of spell he had placed on her when she had blindly obeyed the headmaster and given him her wand.
And the dryad's ancient, wizened face had likely witnessed more spectacles, his pointed ears been privy to more secrets, than she could imagine encountering in her life. Her story was full of holes and curiosities yet unexplored. "Please...?" She asked the whole question with the single word and her self-proclaimed mentor smiled faintly, as if he had expected the question, and tilted his wooden head, casting the shadows of twigs and tree branches that formed what would – on a human being – be called hair.
"My pleasure, Daughter."
A beat of silence as the four humans wondered whether they should tuck themselves into the snow-and-front covered roots of trees to listen to a long speech and then they heard the low, thrumming note. It was coming from the faun, throbbing out from his wooden throat, and they felt the ground shudder beneath them, a crackling sound coming from the earth under their feet. Even as they shifted uncomfortably on the suddenly-unsteady land, Hermione and Klytemnestra reaching out to balance one another, the snow split and tree roots erupted through the smooth white, shedding frozen water with clumps of cold dirt as they arched skyward, twisted together and layered in criss-cross pattern to make a thick, tangled wicker bench just long enough for all of them in front of their astonished eyes.
When the last root had stopped twitching, the dryad's single note ended, and his bark beard curved, indicating his smile as the four teenagers regarded him with awe and admiration. "You have asked for an explanation of the oldest and most complex magic ever to exist. It is a long story, young ones, and I trust you have no desire to sit in the cold and the wet."
888
"I told you long ago that you should have kept your daughters away from all of this," Abraxas Malfoy said quietly as silence stretched between the two men left behind, the air chilly with all the years standing between them, the gulf of their beliefs yawning wide to change what would have been an easy camaraderie a year ago into a challenge.
Zabini turned a heated glare on the single man who had been left in the same room in the wake of his humiliation. But there was no gloating certainty there, no hint of smugness. Instead, the light-grey eyes and statuesque good-looks were softened by – was that grief?
Malfoy caught his glance, and the disbelief in Zabini's eyes, and the aristocrat laughed without mirth. "In spite of the fact that it was my duty to convince you, it was never my desire nor my doing to see you gracing these halls, my friend. I know you, know that you will hate yourself for the rest of your life, that your self-loathing will increase day by day until it swallows you whole. I have longed for years to move in sunlight with my gifts as a musician, but you have clung to shadows and the secrets of the Concilium – and I would not have deprived you of that comfort, for all I disagree with it. There was a reason I never invited you to join me."
His eyes grew shuttered and sorrowful, and he swallowed slightly. "But I certainly never wanted to see one of your daughters in the careless hands of this band."
Zabini flexed his left arm, relishing the searing pain that shot up his shoulder, blooming in the juncture of his collarbone and neck. Part of him, the part that had clung for months to the idea that Malfoy did not truly betray him, that there was a reason for his unorthodox actions, that all would be explained with time, desperately wanted to turn to the connection burning in the slate-colored depths. Abraxas, too, was a father...but as another jet of agony shot straight up the bones of his arm, it dispelled that illusion, and the black eyes that surveyed his one-time friend were hard with contempt for the other man's hypocrisy.
"Save your sympathizing speeches for those you haven't betrayed," he sneered. "I never expected my daughters to be at risk from the man named their godfather, the man who should be protecting them in my stead, whenever they have need."
Malfoy recoiled from the verbal slap, and something absurdly like pain flared in his eyes, but he nevertheless held Zabini's icy glare. "As a matter of fact, 'Tony, I have nothing to do with either your presence or Kassandra's tonight. I have been a tool today – but I wasn't even told I would be speaking to you until less than an hour before you walked through the door."
"Oh?" The deceptively mild tone did not fool Malfoy. "Pray tell, Malfoy, how it is that my daughter and I were so neatly captured on the same night if you were not an architect of the plan?"
"My son," Malfoy sighed.
This time, when Zabini stared at him, genuine shock had replaced the mixture of disdain, horror and fury that had previously manifested there. "I thought you were always so proud of yourself for keeping Lucius out of your work with the Concilium. You warned me often enough."
"I think you will concede now that I might have had a good point – as their godfather and someone who wished to keep them from danger," Malfoy returned pointedly. "Perhaps if you had kept them ignorant neither you nor Kassandra would be suffering the fate that you are." He pulled his wand from his pocket and shrugged as he twirled it absently between his fingers. "I always did keep Lucius completely free of my dealings with the Concilium. He lacks talent, so why introduce him to a world he would always be consigned to watch instead of join?"
Malfoy shot Zabini a hard look. "He didn't even know of its existence until he heard your daughters talking about it with some Gryffindor Muggle-born at Hogwarts. He has no hint of my being a member, or, in fact, that I even know what a piano is. He is still thoroughly convinced of my status as a moderate, model citizen wearing the honored gold chain granted to every pillar of the community who works nine hours a day and pays their taxes on time."
The blond sighed, and a flicker of ironic pride flashed in his eyes. "Lucius has turned out to be more like me than I supposed. It was his information, brought from eavesdropping on your daughters, that also brought me here – not that he knows it."
Zabini barely heard him. "...he heard your daughters talking about it with some Gryffindor Muggle-born at Hogwarts..." Were his twins in direct contact with the girl Mroczek had found? If they were, and if Kassandra could betray the Node, then they had already lost...
"He's always been rebellious, but I never thought his eagerness for power would give him the spine to actually join them." As Zabini registered grudging respect in the voice of a man he thought he had known, his black eyes focused on the musing Death Eater, and he knew his voice held a wondering disquiet as he replied:
"Membership in a brotherhood rapidly becoming best known for its creative forms of murder, Muggle torture and kidnapping is not something most fathers would be proud of." As his friend of several decades shrugged, revulsion boiled the Sicilians insides. Where was the laughing gentleman who had stood faithfully by for Sebastian and his twins' baptisms? When had the Abraxas Malfoy only too eager to assist and befriend an intelligent foreigner with a poor grasp of English become this hard man whose lust for control was the light behind his eyes?
"It is the courage I approve of, not the expression of it."
"Even though it has resulted in your wearing this?" Zabini held up his lividly scarlet arm.
"He didn't know when he delivered his report that it was his father who would have to settle the account. I cannot blame him for rendering the best service he can."
"Merlin, Malfoy, listen to yourself!" Zabini snapped. "This isn't a Special Award for Services to the School or the best NEWT scores at Hogwarts since Dumbledore graduated. Your son has put us, and the world, in mortal peril!" The pain from his new Mark fed the guilt already eating him – his carelessness tonight had betrayed his family, as his blindness to Malfoy's hunger for power had ruined the Concilium. The rage torn through his throat as he almost howled, "This isn't some young man's indiscretion to be joked away in ten years. This isn't a game!"
Mafloy's face twisted and his voice turned ugly as he drew himself up to his impressive full height and glared down at the darker wizard, centuries of aristocratic carriage coming to bear on this instant. "Welcome to the real world, 'Tony. You're absolutely right – this isn't a game. Apply that formidable brain that has served you so well in business to the truth of the Dark Lord's offer. Freedom, 'Tony. The chance to do whatever we wish. I was not overly keen on joining him at first, either, but since being in his employ I have witnessed the strength of his power, and it's no small thing we can accomplish if we stand alongside him."
Fury faded as earnestness replaced it, and Malfoy reached out a hand to grasp his old friend's shoulder, grey eyes smoldering with genuine hope and excitement. "Nothing worth having comes easy, 'Tony. You know that. The Dark Lord is offering us freedom of a kind we will never have under the idiots who make policy at the Ministry. There will be a few sacrifices made along the way-"
"Who?" Zabini interrupted quietly, feeling defeat sink through him as he stepped away from Malfoy's touch. In the fires of the storm-colored orbs glittered the flames of sincere belief – Abraxas Malfoy had truly become someone else, someone unfamiliar, a stranger in love with a vision that could not come to pass. "Your family? I think not. So who are you to decide when it is not your flesh-and-blood who will fall?"
He shook his head as he continued. "I cannot sacrifice my family. But the cost extracted for their safety will be high, Malfoy. Too high. At the end of this, I will be recorded as a traitor – to my kind and to my art – and history will deserve to label me as it wishes. You have forgotten that freedom often leads to danger. Just because you can do a thing it does not necessarily follow that you must do that thing – a fact that most people tend to push aside as soon as it becomes inconvenient. Magic and music are not meant to be mixed by the majority of the wizarding population – you know as well as I do the history of the wars that ensued using music, and the price paid by many creatures. Sometimes safety and peace are more important than knowledge."
Malfoy sighed heavily, eagerness banked in the face of Zabini's flat refusal. "As you will. I know better than to attempt to change your mind. But it will be easier for you to work for him if you find a silver lining."
"Silver lining? There is no silver lining in this hurricane, Malfoy, no ray of hope, no justification. There is no liberty in a dictatorship, no chance for expanding knowledge. And what do you think he's going to do with all the musicians who could challenge his power once we have won his war for him?"
And, Merlin willing, we will not win, he thought bleakly. I, who should be on my knees in front of the Node will now dedicate my life to destroying her, to see victorious a man who would kill my family without so much as turning a hair. This is the imbalance she was born to correct. If I die at her hand it would be justice richly served.
And as a faint shudder of relief rippled through him at the thought, a chill followed it down his spine immediately. The best he could hope for was death.
The worst was victory.
888
Hermione basked in the warmth coming from both sides, Lily pressed against her left arm and leg, Snape connecting with the right side of her body. The bench was long enough to seat all of them comfortably, but with no extra room, and their shared body heat had become a welcome buffer against the cold air. The dryad had their complete attention as he seemed to scrutinize a part of the forest some distance away before focusing on the students, his gaze passing over each one of them in turn. The acutely fierce intelligence and power in the brown eyes reminded them of Dumbledore as the Spirit of Oak weighed them, seeking a window into each mind's capacity to listen and understand.
At the end of this ritual, having thoroughly scoured each pair of eyes, he began to speak in his slow way.
"In the beginning, Earth was born."
"Rain pounded Terra to create rivers, which roared in turn into boundless seas. Mountains thrust upward as plates collided, ice sheeted whole continents and acres of stone cracked and joined the seabed. And in this beginning, too, came the life that would multiply and diversify many times over, spreading to every surface, permeating both land and sea on the globe." He gazed at their rapt faces, and read the nature of the curiosity there for he shook his head. "I cannot tell you how this was done. All of the old races have their theories, and humans, too, have assembled many explanations for the birth of our world, each as likely as the last. Some of you call it divine, others attribute it to a random occurrence of atoms. Perhaps neither is correct. Perhaps they are one and the same. But regardless of how it happened, the occurrence left behind an imprint in sound, a music that has continued for millions of years to tell the story of growth, of death, of feast and famine, of flood and fertility, of disaster and reparations, of life itself. This music acquired a name much later – scarcely a second ago in history. The wizard Merlin, the last of the humans to be intimately connected to it, termed it "The Echo of Creation", for it wove together the billions of strands that described the world as a living organism, and every creature and mineral – from motes of dust to the tribes of giants – held their place in the scale."
"When the early centaurs hewed crude wooden lyres and flutes from the world around them, the earth's first sentient race touched the power of music and, with much effort, received a glimmer of the riches that mastery of the ancient, unwritten song would bring them. Thousands of years before your ancestors discovered how to create fire, the centaurs began to hone their skills, their instruments and their magic. By the time humanity finally learned to work metal in scorching forges, the centaurs had learned how to pull iron from the ground with nothing more than sound, how to compress trees into diamonds with a few chords, how to alter the migratory habits of the Basilisk with a single note."
"And then they had wars."
The statement came so simply that all four teens had to mentally replay it before it truly made impact, and as Hermione met the dark eyes shot through with green, she felt his trembling roots and, indeed, the tremor running through the forest around them, and knew that the short sentence carried in it lifetimes of destruction and pain.
"What kind?" she asked quietly. Mroczek had told her a little of the conflict, but his focus had been men, not centaurs. She wasn't sure the old race had even been mentioned in his swift, broad painting of the history of her latent power and she felt ashamed. She had been so focused on what her magic could accomplish in the present that she had not questioned any further on the events of the past...leaving her with a lack of knowledge her new guide seemed ready to correct.
"Total," he answered in the same, soft voice. "Millenia before human beings would experience their own horrendous, bloodletting conflicts, the centaurs nearly tore the world apart." Hermione shivered violently. The dryad was neither exaggerating nor using metaphor. The power of the Muggle atom or hydrogen bomb to poison the surface of the planet paled in comparison to music's ability to literally rip away forest and mountains ranges, boil oceans, sear crust, freeze magma and send the barren core spinning from its axis. If she could alter seasons with her untutored efforts, what could a true aficionado accomplish?
Feeling the fear transmitted by the sudden stiffness of her shoulders bordering on theirs, both Lily and Snape glanced at her, and the boy reached for her clenched fingers and settled his own long hand over the tight ball, squeezing gently, the callused tips warming her hand. She tilted him a brief smile, seeing his black eyes soften in the middle before turning their attention back to the tree spirit. He patiently waited for the non-verbal exchanges to cease, catching each pair of eyes again before resuming his tale.
"After a particularly vicious battle which sent half the continent of Africa spinning through the blackness of space in several pieces, the centaur leaders found themselves facing a furious assortment of the other magical species. Men were chief amongst the centaurs' opposition."
A peculiar pride manifested in the dryad's features as he scanned them, the emotion tied tightly with a deep, abiding pain. "In spite of your delicacy, and the relatively late development of humanity as a sentient species, you have proven to be dexterous, devious animals. It was with the invention of wands, funneling your own rather moderate talent at magic through wood and the significantly more powerful magical cores, that you swiftly began to surpass races with many times your strength, size and stamina. The pressure of your ancestors, and their forays into understanding the Echo and music for themselves, forced the centaurs to settle accounts in another way. A coalition was formed between humanity and the centaurs and they created, from the first-ever mixed-species orchestra, an island in the middle of the Mediterranean sea."
"This island was to be sanctuary, school and research facility – and for nearly two millenia, it seemed as if the mastery of music was to be turned to positive ends. In every generation, one witch or wizard was born who was directly linked to the Echo, and who, as a result, possessed an understanding of music that was innate and vastly superior from childhood to that of even the oldest, most dedicated students. This One traditionally directed the efforts of learning as they matured, and every passing decade brought further understanding of earth, the heavens and everything that lies between. Forests stretching over hundreds of miles could be re-grown in a matter of hours following devastating fires, fatal diseases arrested and reversed in a few days, bones mended in a matter of seconds. The hidden mysteries of the universe and the depths of the ocean could be explored, and, hopefully, the event which had brought the Echo into being could be examined and explained."
"But musicians from all races became prized. And with that embellished importance first comes confidence, then arrogance and, finally, especially for the One, self-deification. Scholars of music – now mostly human since the centaurs had begun to wane in numbers and talent following the wars that obliterated whole herds – once again began to concentrate power in their own hands. Eventually, conflict erupted once more and the island of Atlantis was swallowed by the ocean from which it had risen, its secrets now sunk in magic and water, knowledge untraceable even to those who have dedicated lifetimes of searching."
"One from among the island's hundreds of thousands of dwellers survived this calamity. Only one. A young man of tremendous skill who sang himself across the ocean as the spires of the great city crumbled into the sea, water folding around him like a transparent ship, flying with the wind he conjured with his voice. But when he collapsed on the sands of Greece, he went silent. The road from Greece to Britain was long in those days, and though nature could have made his journey speedy and comfortable, he refused to bend them to his will. He walked overland for two years instead, and arrived on the shores of these isles by boat."
"The young wizard's name was Merlin. After the collapse of Atlantis, he used his formidable talent for music just once, at the end of his life. He had seen the appalling damage that could be done to all creatures and countryside by those who wielded even a fraction of the knowledge of the Echo of Creation, and spent the rest of his long life seeking a solution. The one he found was imperfect at best, but it, at least temporarily, sealed the Echo from the world of magic."
"'Sealed?'" Klytemnestra murmured with a frown.
The dryad thought, head tilted to the silent night as he reached for an explanation that they could understand. "There are enchantments that can bind a secret to a single person," he began slowly. "A method for hiding objects or magics of great power or danger-"
"The Fidelius Charm?" Hermione put in quietly. The dryad lifted both slightly-paler strips of bark that passed for heavy eyebrows.
"Perhaps. It is not a name I am familiar with – what is the nature and purpose of this charm?"
"It is used to hide a secret with a living person – often the location of something or someone in danger, or of importance. The charm ties the secret to the soul of the Keeper, so that none but they can ever reveal the location of the hidden item."
The tree spirit nodded thoughtfully, the branches comprising his hair swaying almost hypnotically. "The magic Merlin employed sounds quite similar to this charm, although, it was necessarily more complex. He was hiding something that was not sentient or alive, but something that changed constantly, fluidly. There was no ever-fixed mark for a wizard to be bound to, simply an essence – and one so strong it was everywhere, all the time."
"Because the Keeper of the Echo had to contain a constantly-shifting rainbow of sound, the Node – the Keeper for the Echo – required a method of expression as a way of keeping up with the ever-changing music, a physical outlet for the pent-up magic. Hence, every Node has had unsurpassed musical skill, the notes they have penned were pieces of the Echo. These could be played with impunity, for as long as the charm still resided within the Node, the actual chords of the music had limited power to affect the world."
"Just as the secret protected by the Fidelius Charm can sit in full view and be neither seen nor recognized," Hermione breathed, intrigued. This earned her looks from along the bench and Klytemnestra made a mental note to inquire where this precocious girl had learned of this advanced magic – it was not a standard topic at Hogwarts, and she refused to believe American schooling could be so much more liberal. Especially for a thirteen-year-old.
Their mentor merely nodded in acknowledgement. "Then it is, indeed, a similar magic. But there was a second necessary condition to be met when creating a Keeper. As the safeguard of the most powerful magic in the world, they also had to live in complete ignorance of that power, or Merlin's efforts would be for naught. The Node had to be without a scrap of magical talent. Not just a non-wizard, for the vast majority of creatures have a spark of talent, but completely devoid of the magic that weaves through most of life. Non-magical children born to magical parents are the only humans that fulfill this condition, and Merlin ensured that his son born to the Lady Niniane would be this child. The son's name is lost to time, but he was the first Node, the first safeguard, and the first of the truly brilliant musicians of mankind."
"In effect, the ancient wizard buried the Node in the masses of humanity, making it nigh impossible for those who might seek to loose the Echo once more to find the safeguard. Since it was also vital to ensure that the secret would never again be exposed – this was not information that would grow less dangerous with time, but more, as wizards continued to progress in their power – the binding remained untouched by the death of the Node, passing through the generations in their blood, inherited down from Merlin's own son until thirty years ago."
Here, the tree spirit hesitated and Lily, green eyes wide with curiosity and the insatiable desire to know, leaned forward on their root-made bench, elbows resting on her knees, hands cupping her face for warmth. "What happened thirty years ago?" she breathed.
"Fifteen hundred years of research to undo what Merlin had done reached their culmination. A wizard in Germany found the Node, countered the charm ensuring the succession, and killed the keeper of the Echo. Upon the Node's death, the Echo re-joined the world with all of its potential for destruction and creation, the secret no longer contained, no barriers in place to prevent musicians from manipulating whatever parts of it they could grasp and play."
"Grindelwald," Hermione muttered, sighing as a whole new field of 'unknown' loomed before them. Snape shot her a look comprised of incredulous admiration and questions that told her he wanted to pursue that line of thought, but it was Klytemnestra's voice that filled the clearing.
"People have been terrified of music for much longer than thirty years," the dark girl countered.
"Naturally," the dryad acknowledged. "The Echo of Creation isn't the only powerful form of music, simply far-and-away the most powerful. All music has the potential for potency, something I believe you have discovered. And in spite of your race's many good qualities, you are a superstitious species – so 'potency' became 'danger' then 'death' and is now forbidden."
Hermione almost laughed out loud at this baldly-stated truth. Yes, they were superstitious. One only had to observe Cornelius Fudge and his cronies sitting on the Wizengamot and flooding the halls of the Ministry for a few moments to see that. And some music did have such incredible potential...it was so easy in many ways, so effortless to allow the music simply to have its way, to let it come through her as if she were no more than a hollow reed gushing water from a mighty ocean...
"And now Hermione is this Node?" Lily asked, hesitantly breaking the thoughtful silence. "But she's a witch. How?"
"And why?" Snape followed quietly.
"The Echo is a fundamental part of the world, and nature abhors both a vacuum and an imbalance. By binding the Echo to the non-magical population, Merlin replaced the One – a magical being – with the Node, a distinctly un-magical being. But, the essence of the Echo has always been funneled through a single spirit. Destroying the succession of the Node created a vacuum that nature had to struggle to fulfill. Further, the world was abruptly, roughly, tilted sideways by the sudden exposure to the potent music and those ready to twist it to their own ends. The Echo has always been a delicate matter to study, impossible to subject and demanding as a taskmaster. Fifteen centuries ago, the races of the world were more or less on their way to understanding at least how it worked. But when bound to the non-magic world, the Echo receded into legend, the old races of the world separated and culled from Men, and eventually Men from themselves as the rift between magic and lack thereof grew. There are none of your scholars left who have even the faintest outline of the Echo's true potential, the depth to which it effects the world."
Klytemnestra looked as if she would like to object, but the dryad cut her a swift glance. "Even the men who have spent their lives trying to understand this phenomenon have no more than hearsay and a few dusty tomes to go by. Their knowledge is from books, not from experience, and I think the Daughter of Creation will confirm that experience is the better teacher."
"Me. Books and cleverness. There are more important things..." Hermione distinctly recalled the words she had spoken as a budding little girl, words that had proven truer than she ever would have guessed they could, at an ever-mounting cost. She had spent her life relying on textbooks – and here was a magic without a book, without sheet music, a magic that drummed in her blood and sang in her limbs. "Mrozcek told me very little of what the dryad has," she confirmed to the dark-haired Slytherin. "And he seemed quite...vague...on many of the important details. Such as how to control it, instead of letting it run wild."
"'Nature abhors a vacuum'," Snape was muttering. He ran his right hand through his lengthening hair and offered slowly, "Hermione is the Node – or is she the One, being a witch? – because the world needs a specific instrument for the Echo. You fill that vacuum," he said to her. She nodded.
"I think so."
"But you are clearly not a Muggle. So imbalance-"
"The planet is rife with imbalance now, Son of Earth. Your world was an unready one to receive the re-awakened magic, and it has not righted itself since. You have surmised correctly that nature filled its gap – the Daughter of Creation is the Node, but you will also find that it is not so easy to restore even measure to the scale."
"The interruption of the secret's succession and the resulting return of the Echo back into an unprepared world has resulted in great difficulty and enormous upheaval. Think of the Node as someone holding a stone over water. As long as they hold the stone, the water remains smooth and peaceful. The instant they throw said stone, it disturbs the equilibrium and the surface breaks into patterns of concentric rings. Standing on the shore, you can pick up another stone, with the same potential to affect the water, but you cannot take the first stone back out of the lake and un-make the waves. That the Node for this age is a witch is proof in and of itself of the imbalance rippling through the entirety of the planet. It is not enough to simply wall the music off again, balance must be restored before it can be done. This balance can only be achieved when the Node and her orchestra make an effort to master both themselves and their talents."
He regarded them with much seriousness. "Your intentions and methods are critical to your success. The Other has much skill and knowledge, but no sense of self-mastery, no moderation, no understanding that great power brings with it the necessary humility to render great service. To truly rule the world, one must serve it. And humanity's other magical arts and innate talents have advanced, complimenting the abilities of music, further enhancing the possibilities of an orchestra to reach the dizzying heights of control that the wizard Merlin denied you so long ago. To be successful – both in saving your sister, Daughter of Men and mending the broken scale – your work to perfect your talent must be wedded to your will to perfect your character. Personal ambition can hold no place in the battle. When it does, all is corrupted."
"But if the Echo is directly related to Hermione, why does she need our help?" Lily asked. "What can we possibly give her that she doesn't already have?"
"Solidity. Strength. The number one is unstable," the dryad replied gently. "You have an ancient saying, 'No man is an island,' and throughout time, members of your race have forgotten it to their peril. Human beings are social animals, meant to operate in groups and as pairs. All the sentient races share this attribute. Even the centaurs, isolated for centuries from the rest of the races of the world, mate for life. Two is a stronger number than one, as are three and four. The Node's presence will allow you direct access to the Echo, and in turn, your music will strengthen, guide and protect her. She is, after all, merely human. An extraordinary human, but human, nonetheless. There are many tasks that she cannot do simultaneously – like singing a full chord."
"The three of you have significant power in your own right, when tied through her to the Echo, it will be unfathomable, something the world has not seen since the cliffs of Atlantis plunged into the sea. In order to do what must be done, you will need to work together. You are, after all, battling an orchestra many times your number, comprised of individuals who all have greater expertise. Raw talent and purity of heart are the cards you have been dealt to play, but to develop the first without contaminating the second will be a trial."
The four young people looked at each other then, faces uncertain in the dim light, the heavy weight of obligation and duty settling slowly over their shoulders. No one else to do what they could. The power to save the world...
It occurred to Hermione to wonder bitterly why the world was constantly being hauled back from the brink of destruction by a small, determined group of people. Now, and in her future, she was regarded as important to the war effort and exhaustion swept through her, the cold of the air enhanced as tiredness consumed her being. More than twenty years later, they were fighting the same fight. Intellectually, she knew the world would have a decade-long reprieve between Voldemort's collapse and his first attempt at rejuvenation, but she knew, too, that she would not live that decade, and that her return to her own time would pour right back into the fire. Surely they would be more successful if everyone mobilized instead of leaving it to a few students with grit, a modicum of talent, and no true idea of the dangers they faced...
"We learned together..." Her professor's words echoed in her head, and despite her sudden, new feeling of abrupt aging, Hermione knew what their answer would be. They could no more say no than the world could stop turning.
Next to her, Lily shivered violently, recalling all of them to the winter-frosted night and the cold steadily seeping through their cloaks to settle in their skin and tremble through their veins. Their absorbed thoughts vanished as the tremor shuttered through all of them, and Hermione clenched her jaw to keep from chattering. The witch felt the fingers of her right hand curl instinctively, a little warmer than the rest of her, and felt Snape's rougher palm squeeze back, their heat feeding each other. She offered him a slight smile as she reached for Lily's almost-blue fingers, rubbing them to encourage the blood to flow quickly.
"You are cold." It was not a question, and the dryad's eyes smiled keenly, focusing on the castle hundreds of yards away, windows completely darkened. Even the customary bright lights from Gryffindor Tower had been turned off. "Winter, like the other three seasons, is part of my cycle in life and I cannot feel it as you do. Though what you have heard tonight is necessary, I apologize for detaining you for such a lengthy period of time."
Although three of the four students were marked at the institution for their insatiable thirst for knowledge, none pressed him for more information, the cold and the weight of his words stilling tongues that always had more questions. Instead, they nodded shakily, standing slowly, stretching and hissing faintly as their twists brought previously protected parts of their bodies into contact with the frozen air, their muscles taut from sitting in the same position for so long.
"Are we to return to you?" Klytemnestra asked quietly, and Hermione was surprised to hear the obvious deference in her voice as she inclined her head to the Spirit of Oak.
The dryad's large eyes found Hermione's, and the intensity of hope and desperation that flared to life there washed over her like an ocean surging towards high tide, almost drowning her. That look, bestowed by so venerable and knowledgeable a creature sent a painful jolt traveling through her fingers and toes. It was entirely different than hearing him speak of her potential power – that was an intellectual assertion – but to see that he absolutely believed it frightened her almost to the point of immobility.
As if hearing her sudden roar of emotions, the faun answered, and though his words were directed towards Klytemnestra, his eyes never moved from the pale, fragile young woman who carried with her all the beauty and ugliness of life.
"There is no one else, Daughter of Men. I will be waiting."
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A/N: The "Books and cleverness" line is out of the first film. I cannot recall now, much to my embarrassment, whether it is in the book as well, but at any rate, it comes from canon.