Call Me Home

Chapter Nine

Beyond the Veil

(*)(*)(*)

"Where did you get this book, 'Mione?" asked Draco in a terse voice, his eyes widened in disbelief upon reading the front cover.

"The library," she shrugged, wondering why he seemed so perturbed. It was just a book, after all. That is, so long as one discounted the mystical manner in which it had appeared to her.

"This is a lost book;" he said gruffly, "Every copy of Cassandra's work was thought to have been destroyed during the Renaissance."

"Cassandra Malfoy is a cautionary tale for our family, warning us of the dangers of wedding brother to sister. The practice was all too common in that age . . . but she was the last Malfoy born of two siblings," he spoke slowly, as if weighing his words. He knew his wife's opinion of his ancestors was very low and he didn't want to give her more cause to find them distasteful.

"She was insane," he continued when she looked at him expectantly, biting his lip as she sucked in a breath, "She spent her entire life claiming to be able to see beyond the Veil of death."

"And yet your family stilled married their children off to their cousins for the next few hundred years?" Hermione scoffed in disgust. Even in the muggle world, it was known for incestuous couplings to play havoc on the genetic makeup of their offspring and cause them no end of physical and mental disabilities.

"Don't turn up your nose at me," he threw up his hands in surrender, "I'm married to a muggle-born."

"I know, I know," sighed the aforementioned muggle-born, "It's just that I can't believe people actually did things like that."

"That was a long time ago, 'Mione," he said as he wrapped his arms around her, "Now do you want me to read these pages to you or what?"

Hermione grumbled slightly under her breath, her efforts with the dictionary had been slow and had yielded little results. Considering the way in which languages adapted over the years, she knew that only a person fluent in the tongue could be able to discern what secrets the book held.

So for once she had been forced to ask for help, something she had never done in the field of research or reading.

Draco chuckled lightly before picking up the tome and began reading, voice quickly becoming serious as he progressed through the information written within.

Our bodies are but our vessels and when they inevitably die our soul is set free upon the world.

The soul is a beautiful and powerful thing, it can withstand tremendous torture without breaking but it is also malleable and easily manipulated by the primordial forces that exist in our world. In their natural state a soul will reside in a state of perpetual bliss within that strange realm which exists beyond the Veil.

However, there are times when souls are called or sent back to earth to serve a new purpose. Souls that are Shadows, dark and malign, easily controlled by the wizard or witch who has summoned them. In most cases, the Shadow is then bound to the Summoner lest it cause great destruction upon the world of men.

A Shadow takes on the form that their body was at just before their time of death. Whilst physical contact with a Shadow is impossible, it should be noted that Shadows can cause physical injury to their victims if they are well fed on blood and darkness.

Souls that are sent back to the world of the living are known as Daemons or Guardian Spirits. It is unclear as to what divine force is at work that sends these Souls back to earth but it should also be noted that there have been recorded instances in which a Daemon has returned of their own free will to watch over those they love.

A Daemon takes on the form at which their body was or with have been at its most vital. This causes many Daemons to appear as teenagers or adolescents. A man who dies at age sixty may have his Daemon appear as he did when he was still twenty and the same can be said of a child who died young.

Daemons and Shadows are both extremely rare phenomenons in our world, the former of which is decidedly rarer still as whatever Higher Powers exist do not often seem to meddle in the affairs of man. Shadows however, have cropped up at sides of every major Dark Wizard in history. . .

"The next few pages are missing," muttered Draco as he turned the page, grimly noting the jutted tufts of paper that indicated several pages had been torn out. Judging by the frayed edges of those pages and the age spots that dotted them, they had been torn out decades prior to this day.

"What does this mean?" asked Hermione and for the first time in a long time, there was a trace of fear in her voice.

"I don't know," replied Draco, "I don't know."

(*)(*)(*)

Scorpius frowned at the documents on his desk, nibbling slowly at his lip as he contemplated the consequences of such action. The thick stack of paperwork leered at him mockingly, there were terms in the fine-print that he had not heard in years, not since Albus had died.

When Albus had died, the main fighting power of the Outcasts had gone down with him. The strength of Wizarding Britain now stemmed solely from the Auror Department, the Order and Ghost Division whilst the Outcasts no longer maintained their own private army. It had been a well thought out decision made by himself, Cassiopeia, Draco and James Potter. They needed to rebuild a democratic and ordered world, not a dictatorship.

Of course, many had argued that with the Malfoy family still controlling almost every aspect of the Wizarding World in some way or other that they didn't need a private army. Scorpius and Draco had firmly rebutted these accusations and now, nearly nine years after the Cataclysm it was obvious to the world that they had made a change for the better.

Yet now, his father and brother had both requested he begin diverting a portion of the company's formidable resources into gathering an army. Neither seemed willing to give him a reason as to why he had to take such a drastic course of action, both spouting governmental jargon that basically stated to him that the situation was not to be made public knowledge.

As if he counted as part of the general public. He was the CEO of Malfoy Holdings and was arguably one of the most powerful men in Europe, if they needed him to build them an army they had better tell him why.

He stared at the pile of papers before him, all magically sealed in their folders saved for the one on top, a statement that functioned in much the same way as a Tongue-Tying Curse. Should he sign, with his magical signature of course, then he would never be able to speak off what he had read unless the person he was speaking to had signed the same papers. Ordinarily he would have signed in a heartbeat, for he generally worked on some extremely controversial projects in conjunction with the Ministry but this time . . .

The files were all stamped with the crest of Ghost Division and he knew enough of that highly secretive organisation to know that their cases did not make for easy reading. They handled the most controversial and horrific crimes that were known to the Wizarding World and were never shy about the details of their activities amongst those who knew of their existence. Which meant that whatever it was that they were so intent on guarding was something that should never see the light of day.

Biting his lip, he drew his wand and used it to scrawl his signature across the page before pushing it aside and opening the first file. Scorpius blanched as he scanned through the finely written notes, revulsion filling his gut. Turning the page over, he gagged at the first set of pictures that fell out of the file.

He could taste bile in his throat as he hurriedly shut the file.

Children . . . they were children . . . skinned alive and kept alive by magic so as to mentally torture their parents. Their innocent, pain filled, skinless expressions were going to stay etched upon his mind till the day he died.

His thoughts flew to his own son, Orion, who had just celebrated his fourteenth birthday. For the briefest second he pictured that it was Ryan who had been kept alive in such horrible agony to spite Lily and himself.

This time he did vomit, barely making it to the trashcan on the side of his desk. When he finally rose and returned to his desk, his breath sour, his face and hair slick with sweat, he delved into his uppermost drawer and pulled out the request his father had sent him.

He signed it without question. Let the public think what they wanted to, if his father needed an army to help the Department of Law Enforcement to capture people like this then he would give them their army.

After all, he had a fiancé and son to protect.

(*)(*)(*)

Cassiopeia knelt beside the white marble headstones, caressing the smooth stone with the back of her hand as tears filled her eyes. The graves were beautiful, blossoming flowers growing from the eroded mounds of earth, their fragrant scent filling the air.

"I'm sorry for not visiting as much as I used to," she murmured as she ran her fingers across the engraving.

Leo Albus Potter

Her son. Her eldest child. The boy she had never known save for the kicks within her womb.

A light breeze filled the private graveyard, rustling the grass as it blew past the names of her family. Crystalline drops spilled across the petals as she wept, the sadness and anguish of her son's passing slamming into her like a storm of knives. Just as it always did when she came here, to this place where lay buried her husband and son.

"Cassie," his voice just made her cry that much harder, a distant echo of the Albus she had known and loved as his Shadow knelt beside her and slung an icy arm around her shoulders. She could feel his frigid presence, she could see his arm around her and yet she could not physically feel his touch. She couldn't tangibly hold the man she loved, the man beside her who had been dead for nearly nine years.

"Why couldn't we have just been happy?" she asked him, turning her head so it seemed to lay on his shoulder in a perverse imitation of the times she had nestled her face within the crook of his neck. Her tears slipped through his incandescent form, freezing into shards of ice before shattering upon the ground.

"Don't . . . know," he admitted, wishing with all his heart that he could run his hands through her hair as he used to whenever he needed to reassure her of anything.

"Scorpius and Lily are getting married," she told him after a while, "I want to be happy for them and I am but all I can think of is that how is it that they get their happy ending and we didn't."

"Were . . . happy . . . You . . . still . . . can," he murmured into her ear, causing her to wince at the sliver of cold that stabbed into her temple.

"Not without you," she replied immediately. She couldn't be happy without Albus; she couldn't love anyone else as much as she had loved him. She had given him her heart and when he had died so had a large part of her own. People liked to tell her that time healed all wounds, that there would come a day when she would be able to move on. She laughed at the naivety of those people; they spoke from textbooks without knowing true loss. Time just sharpened the blade of losing those you loved, you could learn to handle the pain but it would never let you go.

Replacing Albus would be like tearing out her eyes, casting them into the ocean and then pretending she could still see.

She had learned the hard way that love was as much a blessing as it was a curse. It held the power to create something so beautiful that angels may bleed in envy to look upon it, but at the same time it could destroy a person so utterly in its absence that the kiss of the Dementors was preferable. Without Aurora, she would have ceased to exist long ago, her daughter was all that she kept her grounded to the world of the living.

"Mummy! Daddy!" the girl in question came running up to them, twin ponytails streaming behind her as she sprinted across the grounds.

"Can we play?" she asked, out of breath when she finally reached them and Cassiopeia felt a familiar pang in her heart when she saw those emerald eyes glistening in the sunlight.

"Play," agreed Albus after receiving a nod from his wife in permission, rising and flitting after the little girl as she led him towards the rose gardens. As she left she turned and waved, which Cassiopeia felt strange since she had already spoken to her. Her eyes screwed up in curiosity when she waved back, it seemed as though Aurora was looking at someone else entirely.

As she watched her daughter dance in circles around the circles of her father's Shadow, she felt her heart break just a little.

Then again, for her heart to break it would have to be whole to begin with. And her heart hadn't been whole since the day her son died.

(*)(*)(*)

"You've been here undercover . . . for six months?" asked James, his eyes hardening as he regarded his rebellious nephew. He was furious at the news, more so because he had been led to believe that the metamorphmagus was on an extended leave of absence whilst touring the world. Remy had always been a thrill seeker but this wasn't borrowing one of his old professional racing brooms and going for a joyride, this was infiltrating the most nefarious criminal organisation their world had known since the defeat of the Death Eaters.

"How about you scold me after we rescue Kat?" asked Remy with a mischievous grin, "Demitria knows where she's being held."

"They sent in two teenagers!" James all but yelled, his anger overriding his sense of self-preservation. The two men were on the outskirts of the ruined stronghold, concealed behind a crumbling wall as they planned how best to get in and out without alerting the Cultists to their presence. An hour previously, they had witnessed several large groups enter the forest. It was evident that the alarm had been raised and that they were now being sought out in earnest.

"I can change my appearance at will, Uncle James," admonished Remy, "Who else in the entire Department of Magical Law Enforcement has my abilities as a spy?"

"Maybe somebody with actual experience as a spy?" shot back James waspishly. He had intended this to be a clear cut rescue mission but it was fast dissolving into a nightmare. Katherine Avery has already ceased to be his priority, he would do all he could to get her to safety but getting Remy home was now his foremost concern.

"They sent one in, remember? She's been stuck in a dungeon for a fortnight," Remy scowled at his uncle's apparent lack of faith in his abilities. The fact remained that he was not a little kid anymore and he had a veritable armoury of weapons that his birth alone had provided. He had the charm and grace of a Veela, the powers of a Metamorphmagus, the ingenuity of a Marauder and the strength of a werewolf. He had been the best man for the job and personal connections aside, James had to grudgingly admit it.

"Fine!" grumbled James, "But when we get home I'm going to drag you back to your mother by your ears." He smirked in satisfaction as Remy blanched; the threat of Victoire Lupin had always been a good way to keep him in check.

Suddenly, Remy cocked his head to the side in alarm before turning back to his uncle with a look of urgency.

"Demi found out which cell they're holding Kat in," he said, drawing his wand from the holster he wore at his waist and unsheathing a dagger with his other hand. The finely wrought blade shone like molten silver in the growing twilight. James had already raised the question as to how Remy's knives could kill Shadows when a killing curse could not. The response had been a shrugged, "Goblin-made."

James had rolled his eyes at this because of course his nephew would treat something as significant as discovering one of the only ways to kill a Shadow as nonchalantly as he had. He didn't even bother asking how Remy knew that Demitria had found Katherine, having watched the boy grow up he was no stranger to the enhanced senses of hearing, smell and sight that was awarded to those with werewolf blood.

"We can't just go barging in," said James as he drew his own knife, the one he had picked up from the forest floor and used to kill the Shadow earlier that day.

"Watch me," snapped Remy as he rose to his feet and vaulted over the low wall they had been using as cover. James cussed under his breath and followed, just in time to see his nephew approach the guard at the door and slit his throat. Spurts of sticky red stained the boy's neon-green hair as he turned away and kicked open the door.

"You're going to bring them all down on us," pointed out James as he came entered the fort.

"The bulk of their forces are out there looking for us," said Remy, "We move quickly and we can be out of here before they get back."

James nodded, seeing the reasoning behind the statement and trusting in the knowledge his nephew had no doubt acquired over the period in which he was operating within the Cultists' ranks. He took off after him, pausing only every so often to dispatch of a lone guard of wandering Shadow. When they finally reached the stairs that seemed to lead underground, both were drenched in blood and the icy vapour that erupted from Shadows when they perished. As much as he could, James kept his eyes focused on the corridors ahead to avoid seeing the horrific decor. The long carpet they were walking on for instance which he had first thought of as tooled leather had long since been pointed out to, in actuality, be comprised of human skin.

He didn't even want to consider the ghastly-white fountains which sprayed scarlet streams. It was just water, he would tell himself; it was just water that looked red in the dimness of the halls. Again, Remy had corrected him in saying that there were huge reservoirs in the cellars that constantly fed the fountains with the blood of virgins.

It was a gruesome place, every brick of which filled him with the yearning desire to tear down and obliterate. But from what Remy had told him, much of the fort was below-ground and had several other entrances and exits, as well as other minor keeps dotted throughout Britain. By that logic, he knew that it was better this base remain active in plain sight till they could hunt down the others.

"Weapons ready," breathed Remy, "the lower levels are where the Shadows lie." A creeping sense of dread began trickling down James' spine as he took in his nephew's words, grimly remembering the last time he had seen Shadows gathering in force . . . the day Albus had died.

Despite his misgivings, he followed Remy down the roughly hewn stairs. His breath began to fog as the temperature started to drop, the advent of Shadows freezing the air as the flickering torchlight began to dim.

And into the darkness, did they descend.

(*)(*)(*)

Demitria groaned as she slid to the ground, her back aching from the force of being thrown back into the wall. Her wand clattered across the room, having flown from her flimsy grip when the knockback jinx hit her in the abdomen. Vaguely, she was aware of blood trickling down the side of her face.

She was a formidable fighter but she was outnumbered, despite having killed two of her opponents there were still three surrounding her and all were still fresh were she was weary.

Trust a Potter to kill us all.

This was all Director Potter's fault. If he hadn't shown up in the woods the previous evening then Remy would never have left the stronghold to go to his rescue, thus blowing both their covers. Despite him being the only one to have defied them and showed his true colours, the Cultists were not stupid. By association and sleeping arrangements, it was common knowledge that Remy and herself were together and thus, if he was an Auror, it would easily be inferred that so was she.

It had forced them to speed up their plans. They had been plotting the best way of getting Katherine Avery and themselves out of this disgusting hellhole ever since the senior agent had been captured and they had a foolproof plan.

But of course, the paper pushers in the MLE Head Office has gotten their panties in a bunch and royally screwed things up.

She staggered to her feet, spitting a globule of blood onto the floor as she drew her knife and took up a defensive stance. Against three Cultists armed with wands, a blade would be of little use but it was still better than nothing. At the very least, she could take one more of these bastards screaming down to hell with her.

"Get the fuck away from her," bellowed a familiar voice and her heart brightened instantly, revelling in the jet of green light which whipped through the air, catching the trio by surprise and felling one of them. She spun, taking advantage of their shock and buried her knife in the nearest Cultist's throat in a scarlet spray. By the time she had whirled to face her last foe, he was sprawled across the ground, his body slashed by an invisible sword.

Sectumsempra, she noted, her eyes widening as she took in the caster of the curse, who knew the Director had it in him.

"You okay, Demitria?" asked Remy, coming up beside her and laying a hand on her shoulder.

"Don't. Call. Me. Demitria!" she scowled, a soft smile breaking across her face as she failed to keep her anger at the forefront of her mind. It was always the case with Remy, he could annoy her to no end and she still wouldn't have a shot in hell at staying mad at him.

"She's fine," he chuckled when Potter looked at them in concern, "She's fine." Demi frowned at him, the relief in his voice was tinged with a lot more than the usual cheeky affectionate shared between them. She nodded, still unsure as to why he seemed so out of character when suddenly it clicked.

I'm the one who's too scared to love. He just hides the fact because he cares too much to push me.

"Kat is in the third cell," Demi said in a thick voice, causing Remy to stare at her quite sharply. It didn't matter now, what mattered was that they get out of here. There would be time for sappy lovey-dovey confessions later, "Let's go," she continued, picking up her wand and proceeding to blast open the cell door.

(*)(*)(*)

A loud crash wakes her, her eyes cracking open to reveal a blurry world of dust, debris and darkness. Three silhouettes begin to approach, incandescent yet familiar and she felt a sense of hope begin to burgeon in her chest as she recognized the foremost of who she now knew where her rescuers.

His eyes widened in shock, as if not able to connect the girl who had been one of his brother's best friends with the emaciated woman hanging before him, chained to the wall with wrists crusted with dried blood. Her eyelids were heavy with fatigue, her skin so badly bruised and scarred that her original complexion has long since been lost between clouded blemishes of red, pink, purple and blue. She had always been proud of her pixie cut, now a grimy tangle of sweat soaked locks. Her nails, often so perfectly manicured with black varnish, are cracked as the palms of her hand and soles of her bare feet.

Kat forced a pained smile at him, amused at his look of horror as he took in her broken grin, shattered teeth as visible as the raw gums were others had been yanked out.

"About damn time," she whispered, groaning as his unlocking charm forced open her manacles.

(*)(*)(*)

"How the hell are we going to get out of here?" yelled James, ducking as low as he could without dropping Kat as a slew of green light flew over his head.

"There's an old apparition point just ahead," gasped Remy, nursing a deep cut on his left side as he ran, "First turn on your left."

The curses kept flying as the Cultists tore after them, black robes flapping like the wings of a hundred bats as they hurled curses. They were lucky in that none of the Shadows had joined in the chase, content to allow their human allies to capture their prisoners.

"Crucio," shrieked the woman in the lead, a sensual figure with the face of a pug. A tortured keening filled the passageway as the curse caught Demitria in the back, knocking her to the ground. Remy whirled, a stinging hex flying from his wand and catching the pug-lady Parkinson in her left eye. Her cruciatus was lifted as she fell to her knees, clutching at her imploded eye as agony overtook her.

James spun in alarm, he was ahead of Remy and Demitria by half-a-dozen metres or so and the Cultists were almost upon them. There was no choice left but to fight even though they were hopelessly outnumbered and outgunned.

He moved to hurry forward but froze when he saw Remy aim his wand at him instead of the enemy.

"Go," said the young metamorphmagus and James felt comprehension dawn on him, "GO!"

"Don't be a fool," he winced as he saw Demitria rise to her feet shakily and erect a shield charm across to deflect the oncoming curses.

"I promised I'd get you all out," continued James, when neither of the younger aurors moved. The Cultists were even closer now and even if they took off running as fast as they could, James doubted they would all be able to cover the distance to the apparition point without having to turn and fight. Nevertheless, he was not leaving his nephew here to die.

"You tried," grinned Remy in a perverse imitation of his usual mischievous grin, "Bombarda Maxima!" His blasting curse tore from his wand with a thunderous roar and slammed into the rocky ceiling above them. The entire corridor quavered and shook before a thousand tons of rock came crashing down between them.

James let out a cry of anguish as his nephew disappeared from sight, trapped on the other side of the cave-in with the Cultists. For a brief moment, he entertained trying to curse his way through the rubble but Kat was already fading fast.

Grimly, he turned away and headed for the apparition point.

There was no going back now.