Chapter Fifteen
Dahlia scrambles up from the cold ground practically boiling from rage. With a furious yell, the soft snow explodes away from her in a magical outburst.
Panting harshly, Dahlia turns in a circle, surveying the wintery forest she had landed in, a ferocious grimace contorting her face.
She was going to kill the Weasley twins. She'll fucking gut them and hang them from their entrails in the Great Hall's doorway for all to see. She'll castrate them with a rusted spoon. She'll… She'll… GOD DAMMIT! Dahlia yells wordlessly again, a bigger explosion of raw magic emanating from her. The trees sway worryingly from the force.
She'd been minding her own business, walking back from the Catch the Snitch game after Harry's Quidditch tryouts – she didn't win, by the way – when those two fuckers had popped out from out of nowhere and shoved her into a nearby cabinet that she was starting to suspect was actually the very same Vanishing Cabinet Malfoy the Younger would one day use to bring in Death Eaters into Hogwarts. She was freaking lucky she wasn't dead! A broken Vanishing Cabinet would either kill the user or more rarely have them disappear for parts unknown, only to seldom reappear. When they did return, it was days, weeks, months, and in some instances, years after they had closed the Cabinet's door behind them. It was a common problem in malfunctioning magical instantaneous transportation.
What the hell was Dumbledore thinking, leaving that thing around students! And don't tell her he didn't know! There's absolutely no bloody way he didn't know!
A snowflake lands on her nose.
"Oh, great!" Dahlia snarls, tipping her head back to glare at the night sky and whatever complains she had about being stuck in the middle of nowhere while it was snowing – and all that snow meant she wasn't lucky enough to miss a couple of days, but months if not years because it was supposed to be the beginning of fall and this place was obviously deep into winter – flee her mind. Her mouth dries and her stomach drops. Her rage evaporates, only to be replaced by overwhelming fear.
The stars were wrong.
Normal green eyes – none of that Mary Sue-ish Avada Kedavra green shit for either her or Harry – frantically dart from one cluster of shining lights to another and it is only after several increasingly panicked minutes that Dahlia accepts she could not find a single recognizable constellation.
She's taken four years of Astronomy classes. She'd be able to identify constellations even in the Southern hemisphere because some of them were visible in both hemispheres. The Ursas, Orion, Cassiopeia, Scorpius, Draco… It should be impossible for her to not be able to recognize anything.
She moans brokenly and crouches down, hands clutching at her hair. What the fuck was she supposed to do now?! How was she supposed to return to Hogwarts when she was stuck on an entirely different world?!
Distantly, Dahlia realizes she was having a panic attack. Her heart felt as if it was about to jump out of her chest and she was gasping for breath. It wasn't fair. She never asked for this. She didn't want to be Harry Potter's sister, but at least she knew the story. But this world? What if she didn't know anything about it? What if it was an even more dangerous place like some post-apocalyptic dystopian world or… or… a Middle Age world like Westeros – oh god. Please let not this be Westeros. She knew less than Jon Snow did given she never managed to get pass the Starks leaving Winterfell. And with her blasted luck, she was Beyond the Wall and about to be attacked by freaking zombies.
She doesn't know how long she panics, but eventually Dahlia's breath evens out, though she was still far from clear-headed. She stumbles to her trembling feet with difficulty and casts an agitated glance about for her wand. She had pulled it out when she had noticed the twins but hadn't had time to cast anything before they had shoved her into what she had thought to be an ordinary cupboard. She had accidentally let go of it from surprise when she hadn't hit the back and had gone tumbling ass over kettle into snow instead.
Thankfully, her wand hadn't been left behind, nor lost in the void between worlds, and Dahlia spots the iridescent blue/green/black handle sticking out of a snowdrift a couple feet away. She picks it up, and holds it out in front of her. "L – Lumos."
It doesn't work. Dahlia tries not to let panic overwhelm her again.
"L – Lum – Lumos. Lu – Lumos."
Her wand wasn't broken. She was just not concentrating. She needed to calm down, that's all.
Shaking, Dahlia closes her eyes. She inhales deeply, counts to seven, and slowly exhales a warm cloud. After repeating the calming exercise thrice more, the hand clenching the wand so hard her knuckles were white relaxes into a looser hold. In her mind, she imagines the little ball of light at the tip of her wand. She done this before. Hundreds of times. It was the first spell she ever learned. She could do it. "Lumos."
An eyelid cautiously cracks open.
The wand was shining.
Dahlia nearly collapses from relief.
"Nox."
The light winks out.
"Lumos."
The light flashes into existence again.
"Nox."
Gone once more.
Yes, she could use wandless magic. But she wasn't Dumbledore or Voldemort. She was magically strong, but not frighteningly powerful. Outside of the rare magical outburst, despite spending nearly the entirety of her second life practicing, with great effort she could do things like wandlessly produce a wisp of fire barely strong enough to light candles, unlock locks, summon small objects, et cetera. The simplest of spells, First-year spells. After years and years of practice. A wand in working condition increased Dahlia's survival chances exponentially.
Finally being able to somewhat think through the thick fog of terror clouding her mind, Dahlia begins to rummage through her school satchel for that book Kyle had lent her about Portkeys, dearly hoping she was misremembering leaving the text in her trunk.
Sure, normal Portkeys weren't exactly interdimensional and fucking it up could very well kill her, but she wasn't really seeing any other ways of getting back to her world – a world she had spent too damned long accepting to so easily throw it away for another – other than trying to modify an illegal and highly difficult spell she had never cast before.
Unfortunately, she didn't have the book. What she did have was: a wand, one broom lying in the snow on the other side of the small clearing, one rune wand, one All You Need to Know About Using Runes, one Imhotep, Egyptian Dark Wizard; a Biography, the Mary Poppins biography she had been reading earlier, one journal/diary containing her Harry Potter plot notes, two fountain pens with extra ink cartridges in multiple colors, a tube of lip gloss, a bottle of dark green nail polish, a small compact mirror, a metal nail file, three hair ties, and one apple she had packed for a snack.
With the exception of the wand, the broom and the apple, it was all absolutely useless trash. She'd packed for a fun weekend morning on the school grounds, not for a season of Alone.
She was a city girl, damn it all! What did she know about wilderness survival? Hell, she didn't know what to do should she come face to face with a bear. Play dead? Try to back away slowly? Surely you don't run or climb a tree… What kind of spell would chase off a pissed grizzly?
Biting at her thumb, Dahlia considers her options now that she was certain she was undeniably stuck.
She could fly up on her broom and try to spot a road or a river, but the weather seemed to have taken a turn for the worst sometime during her breakdown. The thickening clouds were also hiding the stars, so it was unlikely she would be able to see much in the dark if there wasn't an illuminated civilization close even if she did brave the harsh winds.
She could stay in one spot, wait for someone who wouldn't mind helping a lost young girl to pass by and die because this was the middle of a forest in winter at night and no one would be stupid enough to go wandering in the wild at this time of the year or hour.
Lastly, she could set off into a random direction and hope for the best.
Dahlia sighs. Third option it is until the weather cleared up. Then, she'll see about the first one.
It goes well at first. The wind wasn't too bad thanks to the tall trees, and Dahlia had honestly missed real winter, though, not enough to willingly slug through thigh-high piles of snow. She sits sidesaddle on her broom, one leg brought up to rest on the wooden handle and to support her wand hand, the other left dangling in the air, and drifts along scarcely a foot off the ground, enjoying the cold air and the swirling snowflakes illuminated by a Lumos.
It's peaceful for all that she keeps expecting for something to jump out from behind a tree trunk and try to kill her. There was something… magical about the place. Not magical like Hogwarts. A different kind of magical. It was wilder, almost. Older.
But however much she starts to enjoy the ride, hardly two hours or so after her arrival to this new world, Dahlia has no choice but to stop. She was having more and more difficulty seeing where she was going through the thick curtain of white despite the racing goggles protecting her eyes. It was shaping up to be a full out blizzard.
Thank fuck she had been still wearing her flight outfit when the Weasley twins had pushed her into the Vanishing Cabinet. Without the enchantments, she would probably have frozen to death. As it was, most of her was chilled, but not dangerously so as the charms were built for high altitude temperatures. Only her face, ears and the tips of her fingers which were poking out of her Seeker fingerless gloves were in any danger of freezing and she kept that little problem under control with her own frequently cast subpar warming charms. She tended to overpower the spell to painfully hot levels and her overcorrection had the warmth at a more comfortable degree, but not lasting. A properly cast warming charm was supposed to keep going indefinitely until cancelled and hers faded away after barely fifteen minutes.
She needed to find shelter. Should the charms on her clothes give out, which with her abysmal Potter luck was entirely possible, she would be more screwed than she already was.
There was nothing resembling shelter anywhere in sight except a fallen-over tree, and its bared roots made for poor protection. Building it herself, it is.
Hurriedly, Dahlia starts piling the freshly fallen snow into a dome-shaped mound, packing it tightly down. It was good snow. Wet and sticky. Perfect for shaping and building. Using a weak freezing charm, she skips the minimum thirty minutes she needed to wait out for the snow to solidify and as soon as it looked like it wouldn't collapse, digs out an entrance on the downwind side. Crawling in, she hollows out the mound, leaving the outer walls at least a foot thick. In the ceiling, she makes a hole to allow carbon dioxide to escape. She crawls back out, and collects several armfuls of branches from nearby coniferous trees with the handy help of the Severing Charm and lays them in a thick layer over the ground inside the shelter. She goes back outside again.
Gathering a small pile of snow, she transfigures it into a jar of clear ice. The ice she then further transfigures into glass. Snow to ice was a First-year spell. They had been spent an entire class before the Christmas holidays having fun making tiny sculptures of whatever came to mind. Point stingy Professor McGonagall had loved Dahlia's fine butterfly with its intricate frosted wings and had awarded her a whole five House points for it. She had even done Dahlia the favor of casting a Never-Melting spell on the sculpture because she'd been so proud of it she wanted to keep it.
Ice to glass was harder, but not beyond Dahlia's capabilities. A more experienced wizard could have done snow to glass in one shot, but she wasn't quite there yet. Her attempts came out frosted and while beautiful in its own way, at the moment, Dahlia needed her jar to be translucent, so two steps it was.
Into the finished container she conjures Cold Fire – Cold Fire being the proper name of the bluebell flames Hermione had once used to set fire to Snape's robes – before returning for the final time into her shelter. She blocks the entrance with more snow and prepares to hunker down in the quinzhee until the blizzard passed.
Aided by magic, the whole affair was done surprisingly quickly. She vaguely remembers trying to build a similar shelter once as a child in the backyard during her first life. She had given up after ten minutes from fatigue.
Huddling up to the wall, the jar of warmth and light pressed between her knees and her chest, Dahlia sucks on some freshly fallen snow to quench her thirst and pulls out her apple from her satchel.
According to Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration, it was impossible to produce food out of thin air. However, nothing was stopping a wizard from simply duplicating it.
"Geminio." With a tap of her wand, Dahlia had two apples. With another, she had three, and four, and five, and six. Biting into one with hungry relish, Dahlia remains keenly aware the Doubling Charm was only a stop gap measure to starvation. Even with preservation charms – which she didn't know – the original apple would have rotted eventually, and the copies became less substantial with each duplication. She wouldn't be able to last long on a single apple.
Dahlia needed to find civilization. Fast.
She wakes up hurting. The quinzhee was small, forcing Dahlia to move around on her knees and to sleep curled up in a tight ball. Now, her spine was protesting the rough treatment.
After a quick breakfast of more duplicated apples washed down by a suckled shard of ice, she cuts an exit in the solidified snow wall and scrambles out. Stretching, Dahlia survey the situation outside. The storm had calmed, but not completely abated. It was still snowing quite heavily and the trees creaked ominously under the strong gusts of wind. She was a good flyer and she could manage a flight, but she really didn't want to.
Dahlia sighs, running the hand not holding her broom through her disheveled hair to get rid of the pine needles caught among the dark tresses. Coniferous branches didn't make the world's most comfortable mattress. Too pointy. And sticky. The sap was going to be a pain to wash out.
Alright. A short flight up to see if she could spot anything human – or otherwise – made. She turns to look for a nice spot where the tree branches opened up enough for her to fly through without much difficulty, and the Siberian Arrow slips from numb fingers unto the snowy ground with a muffled thump. She stares.
Amidst the trees, the flame lighting the inside of the old-fashioned lamppost continues to merrily flicker as if it hadn't just given her a heart attack.
Slowly, Dahlia approaches the edge of the clearing she had somehow missed the previous night by only a few feet to better eye the impossibility. "Of course," She mutters. "I go through a magical wardrobe and find myself in an otherworld winter wonderland. Where the fucking else would I be, but here?"
Narnia wasn't so bad. It wasn't an overly dangerous world. She knew the story, and Aslan could help her return back to Hogwarts. She just needed to make sure the White Witch didn't know she was here, and she was golden.
She shuffles up to the lantern and brushes a hesitant hand against the post as if to reassure herself it was real. A slightly awed laugh bubbles out of her chest. Narnia! She was in freaking Narnia! Dahlia used to love Narnia. She had read all the books and watched all the movies. Multiple times. Peter had been one of her first celebrity crushes. She had wanted to look like Susan when she grew up. She had adored Edmund after he learned his lesson on betraying his siblings for sweets. She had wanted to be Lucy.
If it hadn't been Middle Earth, then it had been Narnia that had been the fantasy world that had awakened her love for reading as a child. She couldn't remember clearly. It had all been so long ago…
Abruptly, she freezes as the wind carries the sound of sled bells towards her, her previous delight immediately forgotten. "Oh, crap."
Dahlia spins on her heels and runs for her life because the chances that was Father Christmas? Slim. Very, very slim.
She doesn't get far. The sled was unnaturally fast and she'd dropped her broom too far away to get to it in time, not when she was battling snowdrifts and unsympathetic winds.
The leather of her riding robes protects her from the skin-ripping sting of the whip, but the force of it knocks her face-first into the snow. A hand harshly grabs her by the hair, and she's jerked her around, heedless of her cries of pain. A knife is shoved under her chin.
Dahlia sobs in fright. Why her? What did she do in her previous life to deserve this? She might not have been a saint, but she'd tried to be a good person, honest! Didn't murder, didn't rape, wasn't racist or homophobic, didn't steal, gave to charity, and okay, she might have had sexual relations before marriage and as an agnostic she hadn't – and still didn't – believed in a specific higher being, but so did a million others, it hardly merited such a harsh punishment.
"Stop your sniveling, wench." The dwarf whose name Dahlia couldn't quite remember tightens his grip on her hair.
Gasping one last time, Dahlia falls silent. Teary-eyed, she meets the icy gaze of the White Witch. The woman was sitting in the sled, coolly watching the proceedings.
She was incredibly beautiful. The most beautiful woman Dahlia has ever seen. So beautiful, it was unsettling rather than attractive. Seven feet tall with deathly pale skin and lips as red as blood, she was clearly not human.
There were not attempts to hide that inhumanness. The White Witch accentuates it with layers of white fur underneath which she wore a snowy dress embroidered to look like creeping frost. Woven into her platinum blond hair were icicles shaped into a crown.
"I felt a burst of powerful magic several hours ago. Was it you, Daughter of Eve?" The White Witch speaks eventually.
"Hecate, actually, my lady." Dahlia stammers, bullshitting on the spot. "Daughter of Hecate. And, uh – probably? A magical cabinet malfunctioned, and I found myself here. Wherever here is."
The White Witch cocks her head delicately. "Hecate?"
"The Mother of Magic?" Technically, Dahlia wasn't lying. Traditionalist wizards believed the goddess Hecate had been the one to create the first magic-users. Dahlia was just expanding on that. "She created us in the image of the Children of Adam and Eve, so uh, the mistake is understandable. My lady."
"Magic?" The White Witch's red lips curl up into a patronizing smile. "Are you telling me you're a witch, child?"
"I –" Dahlia nervously shifts, then remembers the knife and stills again. "I can show you if it pleases you, my lady. I'm still an apprentice, and I can't do much, but…" She uncertainly trails off.
God, this was different from last year. She hadn't been facing Voldemort directly, and he's been weakened anyway. She'd had hopes of a rescue. This was so much more terrifying.
The White Witch leans back in her sled. "Show me." She imperiously commands.
"Okay. Sure. I can do that." Dahlia mumbles, very slowly pulling out her wand from its holster at her hip to not startle the dwarf into slitting her throat because he thought she was going to attack his mistress. With a wave and a couple of muttered words, an ice rabbit was sitting between them. With another, it stands up on its hind legs, its nose twitching up and down. Its ears twist and turn as if it was truly listening to something.
Dahlia peeks at the older witch who looked on impassively. Another helpless wave of her wand produces a shower of blue sparks.
"Is that all?" The White Witch didn't appear impressed.
"No, my lady." Dahlia admits. "There's a lot more I can do. Fix things, but also destroy them. Heal and hurt. Summon the elements, brew potions, make people do things –"
"What kind of things?" The White Witch interrupts. She actually leans forward in interest.
"Anything at all, my lady." Dahlia seizes on the lifeline, though she'd been referring to simple spells the likes of the Babbling Curse that made people talk uncontrollably or the Dancing Feet Spell that made a person's legs spasm wildly out of control, making it appear as if they were dancing. If she does not wish to die – which she does not – she must make herself useful. "As long as they are under my control, they will be unquestionably obedient to me. Of course, a person, with an exceptional strength of will, like you, my lady, if you would permit me to presume, could resist, but those are uncommon."
The White Witch smiles again, chillingly. "Show me. Ginarrbrik, release the girl."
"But Your Majesty!" The dwarf protests. He nicks Dahlia's throat and she feels a drop of blood drip down into the hollow between her breasts.
"That's an order, Ginarrbrik." The White Witch already straight spine straightens further. "Or do you believe this child's magic is stronger than mine own?"
"No, Your Majesty." The dwarf sullenly responds and releases Dahlia.
She shamelessly scrambles away on hands and knees, and once at a sufficient distance, conveniently steps away from her broom, stands. She brushes snow off her pants and sniffles, discreetly wiping her nose. She was an ugly crier. How embarrassing. "On the dwarf, my lady?"
"Go on." The White Witch encourages. "Make him do something funny."
Dahlia had never tried casting the Imperius. She didn't want to land in Azkaban if she got caught after all. But she knew the incantation and she remembered Bellatrix Lestrange's tip on casting Unforgivable Curses; you need to mean them. Well, she did. She meant it when she whispered Imperio and watched as Ginarrbrik relaxes. She meant it because she wanted to live and there was so fucking much she was willing to do to save her own life.
"Dance. Sing." She murmurs as if it was her who was in a daze.
It was a heady feeling that fills her as Ginarrbrik begins dancing and singing a song about a drunken bear. To be so absolutely in control of someone made her feel powerful, and who didn't like power?
An enthralled smile grows on Dahlia's face before she catches it and horror replaces the delight.
This. This was the reason Dahlia feared the Imperius more than the Cruciatus or the Killing Curse. She feared that if she used it once, she wouldn't be able to resist the temptation of using it again. She knew herself. Given half a chance, she'll be using the spell to fix every minor inconvenience in her life.
She could see it clear as day. The Weasley twins and Avery too embarrassed by their own actions to show themselves in public again, Harry an obedient puppet who no longer runs into danger without a thought, no more fear that her Housemates are going to sell her out to the Dark Lord when he returns…
How far was too far? Was what she was doing now too far? She didn't know. And that's why she was in Slytherin and not Ravenclaw.
The White Witch laughs. "What an interesting spell. I've seen enough, seize now."
"Yes, my lady."
It is the fat dwarf's turn to scramble away from Dahlia. He clutches at the handles of his knife and whip and his eyes were filled with fear.
"Come." The White Witch invites, spreading her furs open. "Sit by me, girl. You must be cold, hungry. Let me warm you up."
"I am well, my lady." Dahlia says, but nonetheless moves to climb into the sled after picking up her broom. "I've had apples and my clothes are enchanted with warming spells. Thank you for your consideration."
"Let us talk, then."
Dahlia gingerly puts the Siberian on the floor and allows the White Witch to wrap fur around her. She hopes the woman wouldn't insist on food. She dimly recalled her enthralling Edmund with it or something. Like hell she was going to willingly consume anything created by the White Witch. She was going to need to work a little harder than that to enchant Dahlia.
"Let us be off." The White Witch tells her servant. Ginarrbrik climbs into the driver's seat and whips the white reindeers into moving.
The White Witch turns her attention back to Dahlia. "What is your name, Daughter of Hecate?"
"Dahlia. Dahlia Potter."
"Do you have siblings, Dahlia Potter?"
Oh, Jesus. "Just a younger brother. And my parents are dead. Young." She hurriedly clarified in case the White Witch got ideas about her being one of the prophesized children who would free Narnia from her wintery grasp.
"I am so very sorry for your loss." The White Witch lies. Her lips were curved in well-hidden satisfaction. She changes subjects. "Tell me, why did you run? Am I that scary?"
Dahlia tensely laughs. "I've got no idea where I am and who lives here, my lady. I was afraid whoever was coming was going to kill me. You're not going to kill me, right? I haven't done anything wrong, my lady. I just want to go home. Please don't kill me."
"You are in no danger from me, child." The White Witch lies like a liar again. "In fact, you may stay with me at my castle, and I shall help you look for a way home. Would I be correct in assuming you are not of this world?"
Look for a way home? Yeah right.
"Probably." Dahlia agrees. "I've never heard of you and you seem like a person I'd have heard of, my lady."
Flatter, flatter, flatter. Make her like you.
"I am Jadis. Queen of Narnia, Chatelaine of Cair Paravel, Empress of the Lone Islands."
"I've never met royalty before." Dahlia makes what she hopes is an awed face. "Please forgive me if I cause any offense, my lady, the Potters are a noble house, but we've long not been what we once were. My brother and I were raised by my commoner aunt."
"Nothing to forgive, child. Would you like to know more about Narnia?"
God, Dahlia really wants to know what the White Witch was angling for, acting so nice and kind to her.
"Please. How is it that we are speaking English?"
The White Witch is amused by the question. "You are not the first to come here from another world. Long has Narnia been ruled by the Children of Adam and Eve whose ancestors came from London. I see you know of it." Dahlia nods and the White Witch turns grim. "They were tyrants, those kings and queens. They worshiped a Great Lion Demon, Aslan, who they claimed to have create this land and have given them divine right to rule. You cannot imagine the depravities they committed, free of all consequence, and I shall not tell you, for there are things children should not hear. I freed Narnia, but even a hundred years hence, my rule is threatened by their followers. They slink and spy in the shadows, corrupting good citizens with filthy lies."
"How awful." Dahlia gasps. The White Witch is an exceptional actor and a great storyteller, she inwardly musses. Had she not known the truth, she might have very well believed this bullshit. "Have you defeated the Demon as well?"
A flash of anger runs across the White Witch's face. "I have not. He hides far from my reach."
Dahlia judges it prudent to not continue on with this conversation. She switches directions. "Why is there a lamppost in the middle of the forest?" She asks, despite knowing the answer.
"Narnia is a land of magic." The White Witch answers. "Many strange things are possible here, such as a lamppost growing as a tree would from an old piece of iron. Its light never goes out and the people call the surrounding area the Lantern Waste."
Trees pass by them. The world was quiet. The winds had completely calmed and the sun had come out. The White Witch might have been influencing the weather, angered by the magic spike that had heralded Dahlia's arrival. It couldn't have been her appearing, the White Witch would have felt the Pevensies arrivals too then. It must have been Dahlia's outburst of accidental magic.
No birds sang.
They were hiding, Dahlia knows. Hiding from the White Witch, the true tyrant. The Talking Beasts and the Centaurs and Satyrs and whatever other creatures lived in Narnia. The Stars weren't just giant glowing balls of hot gas. They could come down to the earth and appear as human.
The White Witch said it has been a hundred years. That was good. That meant Aslan was coming soon. She won't have to wait long. She'll need an exit strategy and a way to reach Aslan's camp. Her broom will come in handy. Until then she just has to survive. Get into the Witch's good graces, maybe learn a thing or two about magic and stay ready.
Aslan will be able to send her back to Hogwarts. He will. He has too.
Anything you recognize I don't own.
Come chat with me Quildosse on Tumblr.