Another chapter from Tamsyn's point of view…
Tamsyn Riddle, November 7th 1992, Hogwarts Hospital Wing.
Tamsyn sat in a chair, looking at the unmoving form on the Hospital Gurney; her dark blue eyes, normally sharp and full of cunning intelligence, were now hollow and distant. She was soaked head to toe, looking as if she had just climbed out of the Black Lake fully dressed; even now, she could hear the storm outside rage against the ancient castle as a small puddle of rainwater formed around where she sat. The cup of Pepper-up potion that was thrust in her hands by the matron of the hospital wing had lost all its steam as Tamsyn didn't even bother with it.
She had watched him fall.
Outside of the Slytherin games, she never used to watch the Quidditch matches, using that time to study quietly or explore the school without the watchful eyes of her peers and professors watching her every move. But ever since Harry got that stupid broom last year, she always made sure to go to the matches that he was flying in. He was amazing on a broom, far better than her, how he would bank and turn, his corkscrews and loop de loops were more graceful than any dancer she had ever seen. It was like she was hypnotized by how he flew so freely, always smiling when he was up in the air; completely free from any earthly worry.
She screamed his name as he fell from the sky.
Tamsyn didn't understand why she felt like this, it was an odd and alien feeling to her. She had never truly had a firm grasp on her emotions no matter how terrifying her cunning intelligence was; her emotions were always a blind stop twisting in a funhouse mirror for her. Those odd little ephemeral things that coil in her chest and crush her heart as it tightens around it- and she had no clue how to handle them. She had once asked another girl in the group home what feelings felt like, the girl's answer was as unsatisfying as it was annoying to listen to. The constant onomatopoeias that she associated with things like happiness and sadness grated on her nerves, as the girl explained, to the point she pushed the girl into one of the tide pools in the sea cave. Little Amanda never came up from the pools and Tamsyn never got a satisfying answer to her query.
He hit the muddy and wet earth hard enough that she could hear the impact of the storm and screams around her.
Those transient feelings mixing in her chest tore at her insides, squeezing around her heart as Harry's teammates and friends whispered around her. Oh, how she wanted them to just go away- to not see her like this; even Granger managed to keep her mouth shut about her being by Harry's bedside. How sad she must look in their eyes, just a confused little girl who doesn't even know her own feelings…
She ran faster than she had ever run in her life, forgetting about the storm, about magic, about everything but-
Tamsyn had never stopped once to consider her feelings about Harry Potter, she never saw any reason to. Her feelings were as distant to her as the earth was from the stars above, she never truly considered what Harry meant to her. Ever since they first met in the last compartment of the left of the Hogwarts Express, he had been a near-constant, quiet companion. He was someone who understood the want to be left alone, to just bask in the quiet of a room with only a crackle from the fireplace or the turning of a page to break it. But now, sitting next to him, unmoving and too quiet, had everything she thought about herself flipped upside down. She wasn't supposed to feel these things, she couldn't bear it…
The ice-cold rain was a shock, but she ignored it as she ran across the field to the small body lying in the middle of it; unmoving.
"What was Harry Potter to her?" it wasn't an odd question, nor one not asked to her by her housemates. She had always either blown off the question or answered that the young boy was a study partner for her. That answer alone was good enough for her, he was just a study partner -he was hers- someone she wanted to keep close to her; the first of her followers, that was all…
Wasn't it?
"Harry! Harry!" She screamed as she shook him, hoping to wake him as something warm was leaking from her eyes and mixing with the ice-cold rain.
Maybe once, for the briefest moments, she had considered him just that but the more time she spent with him and his disarming hopeful, and innocent nature; the more he slept through the cracks of the wall erected around her heart. Tamsyn thought she was above such things- a cold-blood serpent waiting for her time to strike, gathering knowledge and power to win when she did. But all her knowledge and all her power felt hollow, useless, and bitter in the face of Harry lying still on the Hospital Bed. She hated this, she hated herself for feeling like this, and in some small way, she hated Harry for making her feel this way.
She cared for him, she cared so much it hurt- like a POW and POP to the heart.
But all hatred vanishes the moment Harry twitches and begins to open his eyes. The potion clatters to the ground and spills everywhere as Tamsyn lunges forward and ceases Harry's hand in her own.
"Harry!" Tamsyn cries out as Harry's eyes open before wincing at the sudden onslaught of light. Tamsyn immediately reaches over to the bedside table to pick up his glasses and slides them onto his face.
"Harry," she says softer, well aware of the multiple eyes looking at her as she drips rainwater on the bed. "Harry, how are you feeling? Does anything seriously hurt?" she asks, reaching out to caress his cheek with her hand.
"Tam-" Harry started to say as he looked at her in confusion before he began to cough. She quickly summons the cup from the floor, and vanishes any remains of the potion, cleaning it with a handy charm that Mrs. Weasley had shown her, before filling it with fresh water and handing it to Harry in quick succession. He takes it and greedily drinks it down before handing the cup back with a soft thank you. "What- what happened?" Harry asks, looking from Tamsyn to his teammates and friends.
Tamsyn opened her mouth but she almost choked on her words, they died in her throat as she couldn't even bring herself to speak about what had happened.
"It was the Dementor's," Hermione says, holding onto the bag of shredded wood pulp. "I think they were attracted to all the high emotions of the game, all that happiness and excitement must have been like a feast to them," she tells Harry as she shuffles her feet awkwardly. Tamsyn watches as Harry's eyes go wide for a moment in recognition before a cacophony of emotions flashes in his beautiful eyes. Shame was the first one, then confusion about something before a flicker of recognition before something even greater shame; sadness…
A deep heartbreaking sadness that Tamsyn couldn't even begin to ponder, let alone imagine.
"Harry?" Tamsyn says, worried before Harry shakes his head to try and void his mind of whatever he just realized.
"Wh-what about the match? Did we win?" Harry asks, trying to grasp onto something that wasn't what was now haunting his mind. Her wand was still in her hand, she wanted to risk a whisper to peek into his mind, to see what was bothering him but Harry wouldn't look her in her eyes. He was distracting himself with Quidditch talk with his team and trying to ignore the thing that was bothering him.
It wasn't long before Madam Pomfrey came around to usher everyone but Granger and Weasley out of the Hospital Wing. Ordering Tamsyn, in particular, to get out of her wet clothes and into something warm, while she hears her, she doesn't honestly care; all she wanted was to stay with Harry but she doesn't. She leaves, avoiding the Gryffindor Quidditch by turning the opposite way which they go. She wanders through the halls, lost in thought and unsure of how she came to feel like she did.
Tamsyn finds herself in an alcove hidden behind a tapestry depicting a girl trapped in a tower wrapped in thorns. Sitting on the floor and trying hard to not let her sobs echo down the corridors, he was alive! He was going to be fine! So why was she crying? Why did she even care?
-he was hers- he was hers- he was hers-
This- whatever this was, was beyond her simple positive nature over things and people. It- it felt deeper than that, like some great yawning cavern within her that she had stubbornly refused to admit was there but now was being filled with something that she had no words for. If it was anything else, anyone else, she would have blamed her rampaging hormones on it and brushed it off after a good long cry but this felt different- was different!
And she had no clue on what to do but cry.
"Miss Riddle?" Someone says, someone she did want to see when she was like this so she tucks herself into a tight ball hoping they would go away; but she doesn't.
"Tamsyn," the soft voice of Professor Árd-Greimne says, causing Tamsyn to flinch and look up at the older woman. What a sight she must be, crying while shivering in rain soaked robes in a cold castle. Professor Árd-Greimne was kneeling down next to her, her blood red eyes showing sorrow and pity for the girl. "What are you doing here, you poor girl?" She asks before a flash of worry and panic crosses her eyes but not her face as she keeps a cold control of it. "Is Har- is Mister Potter okay?" she says, stumbling over her words for a moment.
Tamsyn doesn't speak, she doesn't trust herself to do so but still nods only to watch Professor Árd-Greimne let out a barely audible sight. Somewhere in the back of Tamsyn's mind she wonders why the professor seems to care so much for her Harry, for a boy she barely knew. But her rational mind was nowhere near the forefront as more tears poured down her cheeks.
Tamsyn tries to swallow the emotions, to wipe them away so she could speak without sobbing, but it was fruitless. She couldn't swallow it and it climbed up her throat like bile.
"Then why are you crying?" the Professor asks, confused.
The words spilled from her lips like a sweet release she didn't understand. "Because I saw him fall," Tamsyn says as a fresh wave of sobs and tears rip from her like a painful thorn stuck in her coils; all the while Professor Árd-Greimne pulls Tamsyn into her arms and holds her as she weeps.
"Oh, you poor, foolish girl," Professor Árd-Greimne says as she rocks Tamsyn as she cries and doesn't understand why…
Defense against the Dark Arts classroom, the following Saturday.
Tamsyn sits in the comfortable armchair next to the window, she was looking at the reflection in the window with the stormy clouds above. The weather still hasn't cleared from the storm that had started the week before. Thankfully, unlike how that met last week, Tamsyn was no longer blotchy face and crying in front of the woman she had come to respect; not that Professor Árd-Greimne had mentioned how she had found Tamsyn last week at all.
No, the professor had held her in a moment of weakness as uncomfortable truths slipped from her mouth about everything that had happened that day. All the professor had done was hold her and listen, and when all the words were gone and her tears had run dried- Professor Árd-Greimne had simply dried her clothes and eyes before walking her back to the Slytherin Common room. The next week has continued as if nothing happened, something Tamsyn greatly appreciated from the Professor. The soft click of that very same professor setting down a tray of tea startles Tamsyn out of her thoughts, her eyes almost instinctively looking down at the tray before she frowns; there were only two cups on the tray.
"Is Harry not joining us?" Tamsyn asks, the frown not leaving her face.
"No," Professor Árd-Greimne says as she takes her seat with grace. "I've asked Harry to skip this weekend, as I'm going to ask you to skip next weekend for him in turn," she supplies easily as she begins to prepare her tea to her liking.
"Why?" Tamsyn asks as her brow creases in confusion. She watches as Professor Árd-Greimne's eyes flick up to look at her for a moment before looking back down at her tea.
"You were not the only one who had an epiphany last week, Miss Riddle," Professor Árd-Greimne replies softly before bringing her mug to her lips and taking a sip of her tea. "But that is Harry's personal business, one I keep in strict confidence; as I'm sure you understand," she says, looking up at Tamsyn with flashing red eyes that demand Tamsyn not question her; so Tamsyn just nods, and begins to make her tea.
They lapse into silence as the pitter-patter of rain could be heard on the window, each other lost in their own thoughts at the moment; and surprisingly, it was Tamsyn who was the one who broke it.
"The spell you used on the Hogwarts Express, the one that you used to repel the Dementor, could you teach it to me?" Tamsyn asks, looking up from her tea to the inquisitive but unsurprised eyes of the Professor. Professor Árd-Greimne takes a sip of her tea before placing her mug back onto the table, turning her head to look outside to the storm clouds above before asking the oddest question to Tamsyn.
"What is happiness to you, Miss Riddle?" She asks, causing Tamsyn to blink at the question.
"Excuse me?" Tamsys asks in bafflement, unsure of how to answer.
"It isn't a hard question to answer, Miss Riddle, what is Happiness to you?" Professor Árd-Greimne reiterates, her brow raising in question as she turns to look at Tamsyn.
Tamsyn, once more, blinks. "Happiness is…" Tamsyn says and falters, trying to draw off something other than the most textbook definition of it. But she couldn't, emotions were always ephemeral and distant things to her. "A…feeling?" She says though it came out more of a question.
Professor Árd-Greimne sighs. "I see…" is all she says before standing from her seat and walking towards a bookshelf. "Tell me, have you ever read A Treatise of formal potion use on Non-magical Humans by Marcus Prince from 1765?" She asks before searching for a book in her collection.
"I- No, I don't believe I have," Tamsyn answers honestly and very confused about why she would bring up a potion publication from over two hundred years ago. "What does that have to do with learning a spell? What does anything have to do with it, Ma'am," she asks, her frustration with the woman building.
"It is a wonderfully horrifying study on what happens when non-magical beings consume different types of potions," Professor Árd-Greimne says before pulling down a rather thin book, turning back walking over to the table and laying it in front of Tamsyn. "For instance, healing potions have the opposite effect and act as a poison to Muggles. Some enhancement potions mutate their bodies horrifically, but I think the most interesting thing is the experiments with Love Potions," she explains before sitting back down and picking up her mug to take a sip.
Tamsyn was looking at the small Treatise set in front of her, completely confused about how they had come to this subject.
"Page twenty-two, paragraphs four through eight," Professor Árd-Greimne states as she looks over the rim of her mug at her. Tamsyn looks up from the book to the Professor and then back down to the book with a frown before Tamsyn slowly opens the book. She could hear the crack of white leather and see the creases set along the spine that spoke of how often it was opened. She quickly turns to the page and reads the suggested paragraphs before pausing…
Tamsyn looks up at the professor who is looking at her with a blank face before she turns back to the Treatise and rereads the section again…
And again…
And again…
After her third reread, Tamsyn slowly shut the book and slid it away from her- as far as she could. The words floated in her mind as she digested what she had read, it was Marcus Prince's findings on the Muggle use of love potions. It seems that the potions had their intended effect and created a powerful obsession between the two muggles who originally could not stand one another. But a decade later, when the couple had a child, the boy was…odd; "an unnatural birth," Marcus Prince had called it.
"The boy seemed unresponsive to stimulation to invoke emotions of a positive demeanor or natural happiness; but had a powerful possessive personality…"
He concluded that a child born under the influence was stripped of certain emotions, the more powerful the love potion the less emotion or understanding of emotions the child would have. It was…hauntingly familiar to Tamsyn, something she struggled to believe at the moment.
"I don't…understand," she finally admitted, looking up at the professor in front of her and feeling numb.
"Magic can do and create many things, Tamsyn, but some things are beyond its reach," Professor Árd-Greimne says impossibly soft to her. "One can not create true life with magic, nor can it create true emotions, only facsimiles of them," she explains before placing her mug down on the table. "But in the rare circumstances, that magic comes together with primordial life, the consequences are normally, and unfairly, the child's to bear," she explains leaning back in her chair and watching Tamsyn carefully.
Tamsyn's eyes drift down to the table as she considers what she read, like always her emotions were like a fine mist that she had no way to capture. She knew she should feel horrified to find out that her father had essentially raped her mother before abandoning her to die on the cold streets of London but she couldn't feel it. Objectively, Tamsyn knew that it was a horrible thing to do but personally, she couldn't care less about it; it was like watching it on a telly show, it was… less real to her. Tamsyn's plans about her father before this moment were up in the air, resting on the fact that he hadn't known about her, that her weak mother might have been merely a one-night stand that created her.
But now?
Now her plans were shifting, when she found father, whoever he may be, Tamsyn was going to kill him after taking everything from him.
"I'm going to guess that whatever spell you used against the Dementor is largely tied to feelings," Tamsyn says after taking a deep breath and looking up at her Professor.
"Yes, the Patronus spell is a spell that requires happiness to work properly, a feeling that you lack I would think," Professor Árd-Greimne points out and Tamsyn doesn't feel the need or see a reason to correct her on.
"So, there isn't anything I can…" Tamsyn trails off once more, unable to say the words and unsatisfied with it all.
"Did I say that?" Professor Árd-Greimne says, causing Tamsyn to narrow her eyes at the woman. "I stated that you were unlikely to ever cast a Patronus Charm, but I never said that you couldn't help; I happen to know another spell that works on Dementors just as well as the charm can," the Professor tells her with a small smile. "But I am curious Miss Riddle, do you know why I agreed to come teach at Hogwarts?" She asks, once more out of the blue, as she crosses her legs and rests her hands on them.
"I don't know, Professor," Tamsyn answers, feeling the whiplash of the conversation once more. Most teachers of the school were respected masters of their field, Slughorn was one of the most competent brewers in the country bar, maybe, two other names. Flitwick was not only a champion duelist but one of the youngest charm masters in history. McGonagall's name was high on the list of transfiguration masters sitting just below Dumbledore. Scáthach Árd-Greimne was famous across the isles and the world over for her skills in not only offensive Magic but dark magic as well.
Teaching at Hogwarts has long been held as a prestigious position the world over as far as Tamsyn knew; so it wasn't all that surprising if Professor Árd-Greimne wanted another feather in her cap.
"I came here to search for an apprentice," the professor says, causing Tamsyn's heart to leap into her throat and her eyes widen. "Someone to pass on all that I know about magic and its many secrets," she informs Tamsyn with a small grin.
"I see," Tamsyn answers, swallowing the lump in her throat. "And do you have your eyes on anyone so far?" She asks as politely as she could without sounding too eager.
"I do," Professor Árd-Greimne answers vaguely before picking up her mug and taking a long sip of her tea, leaving Tamsyn in a near fit to hear the rest of it. "But I still haven't made my final choice, too early to say, you see," she tells Tamsyn with a smirk that leaves the younger woman frustrated.
"Is one of them Harry?" Tamsyn asks, her brow shooting up as she asks, watching as something flashes in Professor Árd-Greimne's eyes.
"No, Harry would need to be a few more years older for me to consider him," the professor answers smoothly and honestly surprising Tamsyn.
"Then why do you care about him so much?" Tamsyn asks, her eyes once more narrowing at the much older woman, watching her as her lips twitch at Tamsyn's question. Some suspicion was scratching at the edge of Tamsyn's mind about the professor as if something was off but she couldn't quite put her finger on it.
"My personal relationship with Mister Potter isn't a subject open for discussion, Miss Riddle," the professor says icly and almost defensively as her eyes were slightly narrow at Tamsyn. "Or perhaps I should bring up how I found you crying over him last week with him?" She asks while sharply raising her brow at Tamsyn.
"So, what was this spell you wanted to teach me?" Tamsyn says with a bright smile, letting the other two subjects drop completely as the professor's brow drops and her smile turns softer as she picks up her own mug and takes a sip of her tea.
"Wonderful, and the spell I want to teach you is a very old one, dating back to the age of myth for the isles," Professor Árd-Greimne says before leaning forward a bit in her seat. "Tell me, Miss Riddle, have you ever heard of a spell called the Gaé Bolg?" She says, as a wide smile spreads across her face and a dark glimmer enters her eyes. The look alone sent a shiver up Tamsyn's back and a smile across her face that she hid behind her mug.
Tamsyn had no idea what the Gaé Bolg was, but she had no doubt it was going to be extremely satisfying to use on a dementor if they even came close to her Harry again.
And so Tamsyn starts to realize things she doesn't understand and learns the reason behind it all.
Oh, yes, the Gaé Bolg is in this; it's just no longer a spear but a spell.
Until next time.