August 29, 2012
Author's Note: This chapter earns its M rating for its dark sexual content, including thoughts of torture / bodily harm. No Hannah-Antonin romance yet.
I've been doing plenty of research and reading of fan fiction these past months, as well as a bit of wallowing in despair. After getting such wonderful reviews of late, I began to wonder if I could actually fill the shoes I had already worn in writing the previous chapters. Self-doubt rears the ugly head of fear of failure: such a horrible dragon. Slay it we must!
Bride of Dolohov will include symbolic references from an alchemical emblem, the Azoth of the Philosophers, published by Basil Valentine in 1659. The message in Latin around the Azoth, a symbol to teach the secrets of the art of alchemy, spells out the acronym V.I.T.R.I.O.L. and is very, very roughly translated: Start a journey / at the innermost parts / of the earth;/ by purification,/ you will discover / the hidden / Stone.
The Azoth is a series of images that symbolize alchemy, and I'll be writing some of that symbolism into the story. Although it's not necessary to recognize the references to follow along, readers might appreciate knowing where I'm getting some of my ideas. The website azothalchemy dot org has a detailed interpretation under the link "Ritual of the AZoth" or "AZoth Ritual Working," in which the ritual is thoughtful consideration of the emblem. I'm not affiliated with the Alchemy Guild. I do appreciate the information on their website.
Becoming familiar with alchemy has helped me to understand symbolism that I would have overlooked in other stories, such as the movie Snow White and the Huntsman and, of course, the Harry Potter series. JKR highlighted important events in her narrative by use of key words and imagery tied to alchemy.
Last chapter:
His determination to have the girl easily coupled with his jealousy at the thought of any man in the bar below taking her first. With impatience he dried under a breeze produced by his wand and he slipped his filthy robe back on.
Chapter 8
Hannah was reminded of the time her mother had taken her spelunking – cave exploring. She had been vacationing with Muggle cousins during the summer after her first year at Hogwarts. That had been a strange afternoon, being surrounded by distant relatives, who were clueless about the existence of wizards and witches. The restriction against underage use of magic had been hard enough that summer, without having to deal with relatives having no appreciation for the magic imbued in rosewood and dragon heartstring and in the swish and flick of a wand.
Those relatives were no longer in her memory. They were merely blurry placeholders in her thoughts. The ghostly visual echoes were like her magical picture taken before the beginning of sixth year at Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour. She'd purged Justin Finch-Fletchley from the moving photo, but she wanted a keepsake because she had looked very pretty in her yellow sundress that day.
The fling with Justin had started with correspondence at the end of their fifth year. They later had their first date at Diagon Alley when they purchased their Hogwarts supplies in mid-August.
He'd been a charming boyfriend during those boring summer months, whittled away by owling love notes back and forth. Justin had quoted romantic poetry in his parchments and he'd made grand promises that he would become the most prominent Muggle-born gentleman-statesman in the London Ministry of Magic, bringing Hannah with him as a distinguished half-blood witch. He'd continued to woo and wow Hannah at the start of their sixth year, sending her owls of delicately wrapped Peppermint Toads, Ginger Newts, Licorice Wands, and even exquisite Peer Hermes pastries flown directly from France.
She wasn't overly impressed with his fancy gifts. She knew that his family had considerable prestige in the Muggle world and that he had been meant to be an Etonian, had his wizarding powers not been revealed when he was invited to attend Hogwarts. Her roommates had badgered her to no end over the sweets, and she was certain that most of the confections ended up in their mouths instead of hers.
The trouble in her personal paradise had struck when she received word of her mother's murder. Her Hufflepuff roommates informed Justin immediately and sent him to console her in the dormitory while they made themselves scarce for the night.
He provided her an elegant shoulder to cry upon and let her sniffle on his cashmere House robe. She warned him of dangers to his family of Muggles and he put on a brave face. He knew that she was being removed from the school by her family's choice, so he helped her pack her belongings.
Then he lay on her bed and told her it was time to rest. He had removed his robe and cotton dress shirt, folded them, and had put them to the side. Hannah had been a bit intimidated to see him in his white undershirt, and more startled when he had unbuckled his belt and dropped his pants to reveal white cotton boxer shorts.
He'd declared that he was doing what any good friend would do. She cuddled into his warmth and breathed a shuddering sigh. When her eyes had closed, his wet lips fell upon hers. She gave a start, and he backed off. But then she wanted that slobbery kiss, so she leaned toward him with opened lips and he met her halfway. The excitement of kissing in bed with a boy made her feel happy and sick to her stomach all at once.
His hands explored over her clothes and rubbed between her legs. When she realized that she was going to have sex for the first time on the day that she'd been told of her mother's murder, she burst into gut-wrenching sobs.
"You need this. We need this, Hannah," Justin had insisted, pulling her back down to the bed. "After all I've done for you, show me that it was worth the effort."
She screeched and forced him off her body and onto the floor. She cast a jinx on him that she'd only seen Harry Potter demonstrate in the D.A.
"Get out!" she screamed. He was doing the jig with a prominent tent in his skivvies, and she'd pushed him into the hallway of the girl's dormitory, flinging his shoes, the rest of his clothes, and his wand after him. She sealed the dormitory from her roommates and sunk to the stone floor to cry until she had no more energy left but to sniffle.
Those sixth-year memories now crushed her chest as she sank into the darkness of the dank cellar below the Hog's Head. At the bottom step she slid down, ignoring the gossamer strand of spider web that brushed her hand.
The chill of the earthen cavern clawed through her skin into the depths of her bones. It was like she was lost in the cave of her misfortunes, not allowed to perform magic, with no one to hear her plea for help.
The rancorous shouts in the bar above her grounded her in reality. Her family was gone, evanished, blurry figures without faces or voices. She didn't have a boyfriend to lean on. Justin hadn't ever written to her again, and she had left it at that. This year he hadn't returned to Hogwarts due to You Know Who's persecution of Muggle-borns, and the Hufflepuff rumor mill said that he'd fled the country with his parents.
Maybe this year she would have tolerated his immature attempt to comfort himself through having sex. Maybe she would hex his testicles off this time, now that she had witnessed the effects of that curse in patients at the hospital – the old men's ward that floated in and out of her memories.
She knew she was still tipsy enough to think that sex might solve her problems. All she needed was a man.
But there were twenty men in the bar above who weren't going to kiss her tenderly and make love to her, whispering that all would be okay. Justin had only misspoken, said a few careless words. He hadn't intended to harm. Oh, his words had hurt her, but Hannah knew now that Justin thought sex meant making love. He'd been confused, not aggressive.
After she'd thrown him into the hallway, he hadn't retaliated. He hadn't told a single Hufflepuff what had transpired, except to call himself a dunce and to say that Hannah had been within her rights to ask him to leave her dormitory. Ask him to leave. Not force him out. He'd made it sound as though being hexed and tossed out in his boxer shorts was the most reasonable response that a co-ed could have to a Hufflepuff with an erection bulging in his shorts.
Saint Justin. Patron of virgins. She laughed to herself and then stifled another sob.
Those depraved men upstairs were going to rape her. They were going to take her one by one. They would cauterize her vagina and her rectum between gang bangs, and she was going to be strung up in a dungeon and left to rot unless rats ate her bloody body first.
She could save the scoundrels all the trouble and by simply dousing herself in the Fire Whiskey and conjuring blue bell flames. She'd seen the fire leaping in the glassware of the rogues who drank at the Leaky Cauldron.
She wiped her eyes with the backs of her hands and looked around the cellar. She discovered that she didn't need her wand-tip lit. There were glowing balls of magical phosphorescence hovering in mid-air, illuminating the fusty vault.
In a far corner, she made out wooden crates emblazoned with orangey glowing words "Wizards' Finest Fire Whiskey."
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Aberforth stood in the doorframe, blocking Antonin from leaving the room. "Pay up. You've made yourself quite at home."
"You can have your pissy key back," the Death Eater sneered. With a subtle flick of the wrist, the magical key hovered in front of the barkeep's nose.
The old man snatched it from the air. "About Abbott - the girl has to learn to work. Real work. Not the shite my brother taught children about ivory towers and ivy-strewn castles."
"Get straight to the point, Dumbledore."
"Don't interfere with the girl."
Antonin growled, "She won't be your concern much longer."
The silver eyebrows lifted in surprise and then narrowed in calculation. "You are right, of course. The wolf has had his eyes searching for her since she traipsed drunkenly to the cellar. She'll be dead by dawn."
"Fenrir!" Antonin shouted as he pushed Aberforth back and rushed down the hall.
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END NOTES
Peer Hermes: fictionalized reference to Pierre Herme. No rights infringement intended.
My choice of Hannah's unusual wand of rosewood may shoot me in the foot later on. Dragon heartstring: well, duh, she's got to tame a dragon. Come on, people! Try to keep up with me. *wink*
Justin Finch-Fletchley might not have attended sixth year in canon. But in my personal fanon, he did. Harumph.
*Everything in my own fanon is correct … even my mistakes. Hah! Take that, logical analysts. What? You see, I don't have someone to argue with, so I have to create argumentative people in my imagination. I think it is past my bedtime. Waaaaay past.*