Fantasy Romance
Rowana's mother brought her from their little village of Sarsen to the capital, Aquila, to study at the prestigious Lancer's Academy, despite that Rowana is Untalented and Lancer's caters to Talented students. When the wards around Aquila fall, though, and Rowana discovers she is Talented, she is pulled into a treasonous plot against the emperor himself.
Chapter One
Chapter Two
at 9:06 PM Labels: fiction index magic in aquila story
We all just stand there, small and slumped over under the weight of the grayness of the sky.
I have never seen Talent Issaka and know of him only by his marble statue in the library courtyard. Talent Issaka acted as the High Talent at the academy when he had was alive and his half of the academy kept him busy. I stay in the other half of the academy, the half within the Aquilan wards where magic is prohibited. Though, I don’t think that the wards existed anymore.
I haven’t seen his face today either, because it’s a closed casket funeral with little, white stralie flowers strewn everywhere in honor of his title as Talent. Only a few people saw Talent Issaka after his death, other Talents from the academy and important people investigating the situation, and they decided that the body should remain hidden.
When the coffin thuds six feet below ground, my cloak suddenly feels damp and scratchy. Water and mildew hang in the air. My head itches, but I worry that the priest's black, beady eyes would turn on me if I moved, even if I’m waiting with over five hundred other students from the academy.
Boryk stands to my right, a pale, earnest boy, with his cloak whipping about him as if it might bring him away from all this sorrow. Saaria stands to my left, straight and tall and still, but I can see the shimmer in her coffee-brown eyes. They are both Talented students and have taken lessons from Talent Issaka himself.
I wonder if my mother would read of this in the newspaper, but she has cared very little for newspapers since we had moved to Aquila. She’s more likely to hear it sitting in one of her friends' sun-shaded living rooms. Oh, Talent Issaka was the High Talent at Lancer's, mom might remember, or she might not. She has cared very little for Talents since we moved to Aquila; it was sudden and strange, moving to Aquila.
We used to live in Sarsen. It’s boring and dusty and exists only to grow klang, a kind of drug to stimulate the Talent. It’s a lazy village, where I would climb down from the tree for dinner when I smelled beef stew or roasted pork. Then, on that summer night, mother set down a letter she just received, stood up, and told me, "Ro, you are going to Lancer's."
I was eight, I remember, because I had just lost my last baby tooth, and I worried how the tooth fairy would give me my money on a train. When I actually arrived at Lancer's, it was night, and I still remember the whispered creaking of the gate as it opened just for me, and the sharp, unbroken tap-taps of the shoes of the man who led me to my bed. I clutched his cold, waxy hand only because my mother had left me with him. I couldn't see his face very well—there weren't very many candles lit—but I remember his dark, silent cloak, because mom would never wear something so somber.
Eight years have passed since then. I still miss my mother's beef stew. Sometimes, I want to tell my mother that I don't want to go to Lancer's anymore; I have no Talent anyways, and though Lancer’s also takes Untalented students like me, their main programs are for the Talented students. Then, I would remember how back at Sarsen, late at night, I would wake up to her flickering shadow, trying to find a way to give a better education.
"Your father would want you taught properly," Mom told me once with a faint smile that she wore whenever she remembered father, when I had said that I didn't care about learning. "But I don't have very much to teach you."
I think that my mother believed that my father was alive, then.
Maybe she believes it still—they have not found his body—but I doubt it. She hasd become a beautiful diamond, cold and hard and sharp in elegant shades of gray, since she left the house in Sarsen where she had lived with father and came to Aquila. She never smiles or cooks or hums anymore. Instead, she sparkles correctly for her friends in society. I think she must have loved my father very much.
Talent Issaka died trying to hold up the ward.
They say that Talent Issaka had the strongest Talent of anybody in the Empire and so he took it upon himself to defend the ward when it came crashing down. It crushed him anyways.
Why the ward fell in the first place was anybody's guess. There are rumors, of course; there were always rumors. Some said that the Dark King has risen, that the great dragons are displeased, that a sliver of the sun has fallen through, or something as dramatic and outlandish. All the rumors agree, though, that there is magic in Aquila, although sometimes it’s unclear whether the Talent entered before the ward broke—and caused it to break—or after, when the ward had already broken.
It’s odd to think of magic in Aquila. All I can imagine are Talent-warmed streets during winter and fire shows in the summer, but I doubt that anybody who took the effort to force magic into Aquila would use it so frivolously. Still, people I know who are Talented never talk much about what they do in the other half of the school beyond the ward, and left to my own devices, I can imagine nothing more exciting than fire shows or more useful than warmth.
As for the fallen ward, some people think it has disappeared, as failed magic are wont to. Some people think that it has reformed itself without any major damage, as old magic are wont to. Nobody knows for sure, not even the Talents, incapacitated as they are by their Emperor’s Spell.
I have only ever lived in the half of Lancer's lit by sunshine and candlelight, but they say that in the other half, darkness reigns. Without magic, the Talents have no light and do not remember candles. They lose themselves in the labyrinth of their own academy. Things transfigured remain transfigured, and things shrunken remain shrunken and useless. At least the kitchen is for the entire academy and has no need of magic, or we would surely all starve to death.
The lack of magic is due to, of course, the ward falling and triggering its last trap to inhibit the magic of anybody with the Emperor's Spell, which is any Talent in the Empire, from performing magic. The fact that it has activated was another point of controversy. It proves that the ward no longer exists and therefore the spell is actively prohibiting the Talents from performing magic, or it proves that the ward still existed and was supporting that last spell and therefore the Talents cannot perform magic.
I hear that we were running out of bread in Aquila—here, in the capital!—because nobody knows how to transport bread without magic. I never liked bread anyways.
We all shuffled inside after the wind carried away the last words of the priest and the first raindrops had begun to splatter and darken the ground. It might shower for two minutes or pour for two hours. That was Aquilan winter. A quiet buzzing surrounded me, although both Boryk and Saaria remained in their sunken silence.
I stood with all the Untalented students, waiting in line, as the Talented ones disappeared behind the warded—or at least used to be warded—stone door. They could eat or sleep now that the ceremony was over—or grieve, if they had known Talent Issaka personally. The rest of us stood and waited for another hour or two or three, on tired feet and worn-out patience, to be tested for "undiscovered Talent."
After any sort of upheaval in Aquila, they would test each of us. It was all very perfunctory and useless. In this case, what they really wanted to find was people unencumbered by the Emperor's Spell. If they had enough people and if they taught these students fast enough, perhaps Aquila might not tumble into total disrepair. Of course, they were also searching for the person who caused the ward to crash in the first place.
"Try to light the candle," Talent Diesus, the Talent overseeing new Talented students, asked of me.
I couldn't, of course.
"Try to move the feather."
The feather sat serenely on the bare wooden table.
"Look into the scrying pan."
I looked. Those who were talented would sometimes see true visions. The rest of us saw whatever the examiner chose to put there. This time, the examiner put an image of me with a man, with robes as dark as his hair and green, glittering eyes. I told him what I saw.
He smiled then and I felt uneasy. "Rowana Craine?"
I nodded hesitantly.
"You are Talented."
I stared at him, for longer than necessary. "But I'm not."
"You saw yourself with a Talent, or your future as a Talent."
"But you put that vision there, Talent Diesus," I felt obligated to point out.
He shook his head. "I couldn't have; I am bound by my Emperor's Spell."
All Talented students began with general classes, of course, and there were usually twenty or thirty students in each class. Students who wanted to disappear strove to be average and those who wanted attention were the best, or failing that, the worst. I thought that I would be average... or maybe the worst, since it was already months into the school year and even the raw beginners had had practice.
It turned out that I was overly worried. They had already found a Talent to teach me. When Talent Diesus told me of this, I had thought that they had meant a tutor to help me catch up—what he had meant was that I would be tutored separately. I wanted to tell Talent Diesus that I wouldn't mind having to catch up with classes, but I didn't, because it was such a privilege to have a tutor early on; most students only received one-on-one training their last year or two.
"You should appreciate this," Talent Diesus warned me with a disapproving brow. "Talent Kae is not even a graduate of this school, but we had none to spare to teach a new Talented student, with everything that has happened. We found him to tutor you only because you are the only one with Talent we have found unbound by the Emperor’s Spell."
I nodded quietly and kept my eyes on the rug.
"Make sure you listen to Talent Kae," he continued. "But don't lose your common sense. Talent Kae is known for unconventional methods; he never underwent formal training."
I looked up sharply at him and looked away quickly. He had surprised me, by telling me that he didn't completely approve of Talent Kae. Of course, one school of magic never quite approved of another—and Talent Kae was rogue, but Talent Diesus insinuated that Talent Kae was not only unconventional, but sometimes uncaring of the consequences of his actions.
"Yes, Talent Diesus," I promised.
He smiled wanly. "Don't let his charm blind you the way it did Princess Sophia."
"Yes, Talent Diesus."
I stared at myself in the mirror for a long time the next morning before I went downstairs to pledge myself to High Talent Kae. My white dress was tied simply with a golden sash. I had never thought that I could miss a color, but symbolism was everything to the Talents, and only those with raw, unformed Talent could wear white.
I wondered if I was still a student at Lancer's Academy. Talent Diesus had not asked me to pack or leave, so I assumed that I would still occupy my room. But I was not pledging myself as a student to Talent Linnings, acting High Talent of the academy. Instead, I was pledging myself to Talent Kae, a rogue Talent. I wondered if I was his first student... if he would have other students.
After a final tug on my dress, I put on my cloak and realized that I was running late. I hurried through the corridors, my white satin slippers pattering along with the raindrops outside.
In front of the alder door, I paused. I looked at the carving on the door of the dragons first giving Jenoi the Talent, and I had an inane thought that maybe I could run back to Sarsen with my mother. Nobody could track us; nobody could use magic. To this day, I still don't know why I hadn't run away.
But I did push open the door. I was actually quite proud of how calmly I stepped inside. Nervousness churned in my stomach so that I could barely focus on anything I saw. Two Talents stood inside, one of them Talent Diesus, and I focused my attention on him. All that I knew of the other Talent was an impression of height and shadows hidden in his cloak. That was how I saw Talent Kae.
Then, I knelt down in front of him to pledge myself. Did I come of my freewill? Yes, I come of my freewill. Would I do my best to learn? Yes, I will do my best to learn. And to serve His Majesty, the emperor? Yes, and to serve His Majesty, the emperor. And so on and so forth the questions and the answers came. I never felt anything more than a sore knee, or maybe it was because nobody could actually perform magic.
After the pledge, I hesitated before I stood up, and when I did and I saw the face that the shadows had hidden, I found myself immobile. The dark hair. The green eyes. But his little, lost smile—how I had remembered him—had disappeared.
Talent Diesus waited patiently until I finally found my voice. "Tiernan...?"
Talent Diesus cut me a glare for my disrespect to a Talent, and I suppose, for embarrassing him. Tiernan's green eyes narrowed a bit at me before he let out a dark chuckle.
"Talent Kae, I ap—"
With a wave, Talent Kae cut off Talent Diesus's apology. "Yes, Rowana." Somehow, I found his steady gaze unsettling. "But you must call me Talent Kae now."
I nodded numbly.
"Follow me." He turned with an impressive swirl of his dark cloak. I felt loud and clumsy stumbling after his gliding shadow. "You have things to learn."
The alder door creaked a little before slamming shut behind us. I used both hands to pick up my cloak and my dress so I could catch up with Tiernan's long strides.
at 8:50 PM Labels: fiction magic in aquila story
Tiernan didn't have a mother.
He didn't have a father, either, but everybody knew that. But Rowana believed that he stayed at home all day, watering the vegetables or dusting the rooms, because his mother asked him to.
Of course, Tiernan dusted, as best as he could, which meant that he never quite reached the top shelf of the bookcase. He did the laundry when he needed to and he cooked, occasionally, but only so that the fowl no longer oozed red. Mostly, when he stayed home, he practiced his Talent.
It was a weary lifestyle, even Tiernan admitted, but he had to learn to control his Talent by himself. No Talent ever passed through the dusty village of Sarsen, much less to stay and teach, and Tiernan refused to leave Sarsen. Besides, he liked Rowana's company.
Rowana was a Sarsen girl, with hair the color of Sarsen dust and eyes like the clear Sarsen sky. She and her mother lived next to Tiernan, in a cottage as small as his.
Rowana stayed home a lot in the winters, and sometimes Tiernan wished she would stay outside and bear the cold with him instead of warming her hands in front of the fireplace with her mother. Sometimes, though, Rowana's mother would invite him to dinner and he could pretend, for a while, that she was his mother and he was eating a family dinner. More often than not, though, he had to decline and pretend that his mother wanted him with her.
But in summer, the days were long. When the air was too hot and the wind too lazy, Rowana's mother didn't really care anymore what Rowana did with herself, and Tiernan played with Rowana every night in the summers. Tiernan would think, This is what it would have been like if my parents had wanted me; I would've had a little sister like Ro.
One night nearing the end of summer, when the full moon hid behind the blackened clouds, a terrible anxiety took hold of Tiernan. He asked Rowana, "Promise you'll always come over and play?"
Rowana had looked at him strangely and made a hole in the dirt with her finger. "Of course. Why not?"
Tiernan looked at her and then away just as quickly. "Promise me you'll stay."
Rowana grinned, showing a gap where she had lost her last baby tooth. "Of course I will."
Tiernan had thought that Rowana was in earnest, then. She must have been. She was eight and too young for artifice like that. But whether Rowana meant her promise or not, that was the last time she came over and played with him.
at 8:44 PM Labels: fiction magic in aquila story
I've finally come back from China. I love the country dearly, and I only ever go there for vacation now, so it's very relaxing. And I love being with my grandparents. But still... there's just something lacking when the computer CPU is less than 1.0 GH, and there's only 128 MB of RAM. (That, and some idiot installed XP on the machine.) The internet fairly crawled at 10 KB/sec, average, as compared to the dorm internet I'm used to.
I haven't been entire useless, though. I wrote some of my stories. Though, I still don't know if I'll be able to finish them. And I've done some subbing.
Let's see...
Pawnshop No. 8 is my current baby, with the first batch of softsubs (eps 1-5) out already. battlegirlai is timing it, and it is quite a small group (2 people) for quite a large project (116 episodes). Still, I suspect it'll get done within a year... or two. You can find out all the information about it here.
The Blood Drinking Knife is my personal pet project, with no episodes released. It's a period drama... and things are going, but slowly. Ah, well...
Engagement for Love is still on hold. I did manage to download the 6th feeling version of it, which has very nice quality (thank you battlegirlai), but I'm just not motivated to do it right now... so it's put on hold.
Otherwise, I'm still in SUBlimes, but it has slowed a bit. Or maybe I hadn't participated in much in the last couple of months (due to being away and all that). And or course Flower Rain is still subbing its shows.
Ah... what am I going to do when school starts?
at 7:36 AM Labels: subbing thoughts 94 comments
Losana wandered around the empty apartment listlessly. She found herself wishing that she had signed up for a class like Emily had, though probably not three hours of modern and ballet dancing everyday. An introductory painting class or a job might be nice, though. Losana couldn't imagine that standing in front of a cash register in Duane Reade would be duller than sitting at home aimlessly and listening to the radio replay the same summer love songs over and over again.
Originally, she had expected to practice her magic over the summer, since the school year always seemed to be impossibly busy. Besides, Sylvia never strayed too far from her apartment—certainly not as far as her university—and she needed the air elemental's guidance to control her magic. She had considered finding a human teacher when she had first discovered her magic, but she had never quite found a way to broach the subject with anybody. Besides, Sylvia seemed to know more than any human could, anyways.
But Losana hadn't had any contact with Sylvia in the last week and a half, not even a gentle breeze ruffling her hair. She had felt the vague presence of the fire elemental, but she had never made its acquaintance formally and she would have felt awkward approaching it without Sylvia.
Losana sighed as the radio played another advertisement for some auto insurance or other. She blamed her utter boredom, among other things, on one Teagan N., who had intruded on her life.
The first couple of days after his visit—and abrupt departure—Losana had kept wary, eying the shadows and peeking into rooms before entering. Honestly, she hadn't believed that he would leave so docilely after his blatant aggressiveness, and had expected to find him hovering around the apartment unseen. She had looked for his gray eyes and had half-expected to smell his scent in her room, where he had last held—grabbed her.
But he wasn't there. He was never there, and Losana felt something strangely akin to disappointment. In the last few days, Losana had finally given up the idea that there was a man lurking, unseen, in the hidden corners of her apartment.
And boredom had replaced her wariness, because although she knew that Teagan was not in the apartment, Sylvia hadn't returned either. None of the air elementals had.
When Sylvia finally reappeared, she was such a faint shimmer in the air that Losana almost didn't notice. In fact, she wouldn't have if she hadn't been looking for Sylvia this whole time.
"Sylvia, I've missed you," Losana said. "Life's been so boring without you."
Sylvia smiled and flitted around until she was out of the shadows and almost entirely opaque, with only the faint, blurred glow of sunlight shining through her, making her glitter like something saintly. "I did not think that you would appreciate excitement after the recent happenings."
“It’s been two very boring weeks.” Losana plopped down on the sofa. "So when can you teach me magic?"
Sylvia flew in a circle around Losana before answering, "I can't."
"What? Why not?"
"I..." Sylvia began to answer but she made a little worried frown and stopped. "You should ask the Nusquamesse to teach you."
Losana furrowed her brows. "'The Nusquamesse'...?” The she remembered the man who had plagued her thoughts for the entire last week and a half. “Oh! You mean Teagan."
Sylvia made another circle around Losana's head. "Yes, the Nusquamesse. Ask him. I cannot teach you anymore."
"Wh—" Losana began to ask, but the air had already smoothed out where Sylvia had been so that the sunlight can through the window unfiltered. She could call to Sylvia, because Sylvia could never truly leave this place, but if Sylvia didn't want to talk anymore of the subject, she wouldn't.
Losana stood in front of her neighbor's door, two doors down. Polished wood, painted in a smooth, dark chocolate color like any other door in the building. But this one felt different. It hadn't felt different from the other apartments when Grandpa Jerry was living there, but Grandpa Jerry had moved out to Long Island to live with his daughter and grandchildren, and Teagan Nusquamesse had moved into it—two doors down from her apartment.
She took a deep breath. She wasn't doing anything weird. First of all, she was just visiting a neighbor. A new neighbor. She was giving a friendly neighborly welcome and all that like nice, kind people ought to do. She even had a warm apple pie as her alibi. So what if she was going to ask him about magic? Sylvia had told her to ask him, and he himself had talked about magic (even though a very large part of her mind was more inclined to simply think that she had imagined that).
Knock... knock, knock.
There, she knocked. She took a deep breath and forced herself not to smooth her white, summer skirt or tug at the strands of her blow-dried hair. She was welcoming him with an apple pie, not herself.
The door opened immediately. Teagan stood at the entryway, in a shirt and dress pants. There weren't any shoes covering his large, bare feet, though. His mouth widened slowly in a smile that reminded Losana why she had been so unsettled every time she remembered him. "It's good to see you visiting." And oh, his voice... a low rumble like the distant thunder. "Is that pie for me?"
Losana thought that she could just stand there and look at him and listen to him talk forever.
"Or should I be jealous that you've made pie for somebody else?"
"Oh, um..." Losana kicked herself mentally for spacing out like that. She might be asking Teagan for help, but she couldn't—mustn’t—forget that he could be dangerous. If nothing else, he knew magic better than she did. And then there was always his sheer size and strength. "Apple pie. I Baked. At home." She paused before deciding to make another attempt at coherent, complete sentences. "But you're probably going out now because you're all dressed up so I won't bother you anymore and you can just have the pie and I'll visit some other time." She didn't think that that sentence was any more coherent.
She held out the pie to him, and was embarrassed to find that her hands were shaking and that she couldn't quite look at him and stared instead at a pretty onyx colored button on his black silk—it looked like silk, at least—shirt. He was just a neighbor, so she didn't know why her hands should be shaking. When large warm hands gently closed over hers, though, she was startled into looking up at Teagan and his gray eyes. She had forgotten that he had gray eyes. She hadn't thought she would.
"Do come in and share the pie with me," he invited. He sounded gentle and his hands were already pulling her into his apartment.
Losana let herself be glided by his hands. She could see the minimalist furniture, made of sharp glass and black steel, decorating his house. There were no flowers or plants or pets. Just a giant black and white abstract painting hanging on the biggest wall, a harsh version of those pretty hotel decorations and framed in cold, gleaming metal framing. This is who he is, Losana reminded herself.
The door clicked shut, then, and Losana felt a moment of panic before she reminded herself sternly that it was still broad daylight. And that Sylvia had told her to come to Teagan, and she trusted Sylvia. She noticed that Teagan had already set out two black, ceramic plates and placed a slice of pie on each. He pulled out a seat for Losana at the table in the kitchen and then placed himself next to her.
"Why are you here?" Teagan asked her just as she bit into the slice of apple pie.
She chewed it slowly, when she found Teagan's gray eyes trained on her. When she swallowed her bite, she told him, "Have some pie. Everybody says that my apple pies are good. I came to welcome you with an apple pie."
He blinked slowly before carefully cutting off a piece of the pie with his fork and placing it in his mouth. He chewed it slowly, keeping his eyes on her the whole time. "Indeed, you make a very good apple pie, but I don't believe that you came here to bring me a pie."
Losana fidgeted, but she figured she would have to ask him sooner or later, and it was probably better sooner. She swallowed the apple pie in her mouth with a gulp that sat uncomfortably at her throat. “Would you teach me survainer magic?”
For a moment, Teagan remained impassive. Losana resisted the urge to dash out the door out of sheer embarrassment. Honestly, nobody talked of magic as if it were real, and “survainer” magic? He probably thought she was mentally unstable and liked to play at pretend.
But the next moment, he gave her a slow, steady smile filled with white, gleaming teeth, as if he had been waiting for her to ask exactly that even before she had knocked on his door. Losana gulped and stared at her pie, wondering if she had made a mistake in trusting Sylvia. Sylvia could have different values than her, after all, considering that they were not off the same... kind of beings.
When Losana glanced up, she found that Teagan had put down his fork and leaned forward. His eyes were swirling like mercury and so completely focused on her that she couldn't pull her gaze away a second time.
“I'll teach you magic,” he promised—it sounded like either a promise or a threat and Losana would prefer for it to be a promise. “But I won't teach you survainer magic.”
“Call an elemental,” Teagan said as she sunk into the black leather sofa. His voice drifted from somewhere behind her.
“But...” Losana didn't know why exactly why she was objecting, so she stopped her objections. Still, she had expected him to start her on long-winded theories or some tedious background or at least ask her how much she knew of magic. “Which elemental?” she asked, instead.
“Any.” Teagan's voice came from to her right, and she turned to glance at him, but he was a blurred shadow in front of the bright sunlight that streamed through the buildings from outside the window.
So, instead, Losana closed her eyes and shifted more comfortably in the sofa. After a moment, she opened her eyes, though, and said, “But, there aren't any elementals here.”
“Hmm...?” Teagan sounded distracted, from right behind her again. She turned to look at him, only to find that his gray eyes were completely focused her. “Just try.”
“Alright,” Losana acquiesced doubtfully. She only agreed because she had asked him for the favor of teaching her. So, she felt she needed to listen to him. She closed her eyes again, and felt her heart pounding unreasonably in her chest. When she finally took her attention off of her racing heart, all she could hear was the silence of the apartment, with a pre-war building's thick walls and double pane soundproof windows. Even Teagan's breathing was so quiet that she could only hear her own breaths rise and fall overly loudly.
Slowly, Losana forced herself to find that strand of magic that was usually always so close to the surface. This time, though, she had to coax it out, and let its warmth flow out carefully, as if it were a tiny flame that could be blown out at any moment. Even when her magic surrounded her, though, she couldn't sense any elementals in the area. Still, maybe Teagan just wanted to see how she called elementals in the first place, so she opened a little more.
Hello? She asked tentatively, feeling as if she walked into a conference room after the meeting was long over. I—
Suddenly, she felt something slam into her. It was black and stifling and it wrapped around her oppressively. She tried to open her eyes, then, but they weren't listening to her. Then, she tried to scream, but no sound came out. She pushed at it with her magic, but it was like a wet towel and became heavier as it drained her of the magic that she pushed at it.
Then, tendrils of it started drifting into her. She didn't know how it was happening or how she knew that it was happening, but she could feel them, tens or hundreds of little tendrils sneaking into her and going to the deepest parts of her. They were making holes in her own magic and getting more and more tangled and tight as she tried to push them out.
Get out! Losana shouted mentally, because she couldn't hear anything in the stifling dark silence of her mind, but she had never felt anything like this, neither the utter, sudden, desperate helplessness nor the pain as if somebody had plunged their hand inside of her and started squeezing her organs.
It's too late now, Teagan's cool voice flowed into her. Just let it in. His voice soothed her until she was just calm enough to understand what he had said.
No, Losana rebelled, and pushed at the strands of invasive magic with renewed fervor, but as before, it absorbed her magic. Only this time, the frightening burning pain redoubled and spread out to her arms and legs. She felt the proverbial hammer pounding on her head just before she fainted into painlessness.
Losana came awake slowly, rising through the layers of warmth that surrounded her. They weren't the uncomfortable, sweaty heat of summer as her sluggish mind had expected, but something softer. The warmth that surrounded her wasn't physical at all.
With that thought, she jerked awake and sat up too quickly. She was in an airy room, with sunlight brightening the clean, white walls. The covers, too, were white... and most definitely not hers. When she looked around once more, she found Teagan, sitting in the chair so still that she had missed him the first time around. His eyes, though, were fixed on her firmly.
Losana tightened her grip on blanket and fought not to pull back. There was nowhere for her to go, and it would only make her fear apparent. She didn't know what had happened, exactly, or what Teagan wanted, but from what she remembered, she thought she ought to stay alert.
“I'm not going to hurt you,” Teagan said, as if he could read her thoughts.
Losana relaxed her grip on the blankets for a moment before she gripped them hard again, so that her knuckles were white. “Because you already did?”
She could swear that Teagan's light gray eyes flattened for a moment in displeasure, making his beautiful face awful and terrifyingly inhuman. If they did, though, it was gone in the next moment. Losana forced herself to breathe normally. Even if she were alone with him in his apartment and her survainer magic would be of no help, she still had her wits about her. Besides, Sylvia knew where she was, and Sylvia would find a way to help her if she didn't go back to her apartment soon. She hoped, at least.
“I did not hurt you,” Teagan said, and Losana wanted to believe him. “You hurt yourself.”
“So, those... things... they were from you.”
Teagan nodded, and Losana felt disappointed. She had wanted him to say no, she supposed, and would even have tried to believe him, because Sylvia had trusted him. And because he had such mesmerizing gray eyes. In the movies, beautiful people were always good people.
“Why?”
“You shouldn't leave yourself open to attacks like that, and once you are attacked, you should not have struggled as you did.”
“I've never gotten attacked before!” Losana exclaimed. “You were the first and only, and only because I asked you to teach me magic. You could have at least warned me—or better yet, taught me how to defend against something like that before you just went at it.”
“Now you know.”
Losana stared at him in utter disbelief for a moment before pointing out, “Yes, but I still don't know how to defend against that.”
“You would—”
“I don't want to hear it,” Losana cut him off. She felt the hot heat of anger slowly burn away the fatigue from fear, and frustrated enough that her eyes were stinging with tears. “I'm not going to ask you to 'teach' me anymore magic.”
“Who will you ask? Sylvia won't teach you. None of those elementals will.”
Losana paused. Who would she ask? “I'm sure you're not the only one who knows magic,” she answered him anyways. The only other person she knew who knew magic was Charles. Still, she thought she’d rather have wild magic than to ask Teagan for help again.
Losana wiped her hands on the pale green towel absently. Her boredom had driven her into doing the dishes by hand instead of using the dishwasher. Besides, her parents were both away on business trips. Emily had left two days ago with a blue duffel bag for her dance competition and wasn’t due back until another two days.
Losana had had a plan when she had left Teagan, she reflected sourly. It was just a very poorly contrived plan. She had planned to find somebody else who knew magic and ask them to teach her. Or she would teach herself through experimentation.
However, she had had trouble finding anybody to teach her. After the abduction, Losana had resolved to avoid Charles and his men at all costs. She could think of no way of knowing if somebody knew magic either, unless she attacked random strangers on the streets to see who could defend themselves. Well, she didn’t know how to attack people and she didn’t want to cause others the pain she had suffered. Besides, she didn’t think the person would be very much inclined to teach her after getting attacked, even supposing she found some such person.
She tried to teach herself magic, then, but when she prodded her magic, she could feel a twinge of rawness and pain going from her chest out to her limbs. It wasn’t particularly painful, but when she tried to untangle her magic from those slimy black tendrils and pull it out, the debilitating pain from when Teagan had attacked her would return. It felt like she was tearing her organs to little pieces. She would double over and take deep breaths to calm herself with her familiar room spinning around her. She never even managed to call her magic since that unfortunate meeting with Teagan.
Losana was angry at Teagan and fell into a pattern of fuming. Each time she failed to call her magic—which was every single time—she would sit, feeling bereft of magic. And she would get angry at Teagan for somehow chasing away Sylvia, for tricking her into getting attacked, and for the pain. She’d get all worked up about it, but when she tried to remembered the pain without using her magic, she would only remember the soft comfort she had woken up to. She’d see Teagan in her mind and he’d have the most mercurial mercury eyes and the smoothest bass voice she’s ever heard. She’d sigh softly and smile to herself, and wonder what the big deal was about a little pain. Then, she would try to call her magic again, only to stop short when the littlest twinge of pain reminded her how much it had really hurt.
After several rounds of fuming, Losana had decided to do something useful instead. She had cleaned up the apartment, vacuumed it, made herself dinner, and then cleaned up after herself by doing the dishes. Now, she was fuming about this stupid fuming cycle that Teagan got her into.
All her miseries (which was really just boredom) was, after all, completely and wholly Teagan’s fault, and she amused herself by thinking up ways to avenge herself.
First, she thought she’d burn down his apartment, and wondered how shock and horror would look on his face, but she could only see his impassive face turned on her in her mind’s eye, with his gray eyes flat and demanding an explanation, and it frightened her more than she was willing to admit to herself. Then, she remembered that it would probably cause her apartment to burn down as well and so the plan wouldn’t work anyways. Then, she thought she’d go vandalize his apartment instead, complete with breaking furniture and painting the walls with graffiti. But, she realized, he might not care about his apartment at all. Or maybe he would just spend some money to get the walls repainted and buy the furniture again.
She’d have to do something drastic but subtle, Losana thought. She would find out his likes and dislikes and do something to destroy all the pleasures in his life. But though she thought she knew his personality quite well, she realized that she only knew some of what he could do, but not what he enjoyed doing, and to find out meant approaching him again. Well, a reconnaissance mission was in order, then.
The doorbell brought her away from her vengeful thoughts. Losana decided that the visitor could not have interrupted her on purpose, though, so she wouldn’t get mad at him. Unless it was Teagan, of course.
She realized her mistake the moment she opened her door. Six burly men stood outside, with day-old beards on their oily faces. They looked like clones of the other five who had kidnapped Emily over two long weeks ago. Losana didn’t know how she managed to forget Charles even in her anger towards Teagan. Teagan was only one man, after all, but Charles represented a whole organization.
She took one look at the twelve glassy eyes and tried to shut the door, but one of them wedged a foot inside before the door could shut. Another one, or maybe it was the same one, slid an arm through the opening and grabbed for Losana’s hand that was shutting the door. She jerked away in reflex and turned away from the opening, only to have them push the door wide open and stomp inside with dust clinging all over their gray, slumped suits and shoes that were badly in need of a polish.
“The doorman shouldn’t have let you in,” Losana stalled for time.
One of them laughed. “There were six of us and one of him. Just like how there are six of us now and one of you.”
All six of them took that as some cue to break out in cruel, broken laughter that frightened Losana into taking a step back.
“I’m not powerless,” she bluffed, as she wondered if she could endure the pain just this once and possibly beg Sylvia into helping her, despite Sylvia’s reservations. Or maybe she would call the fire elemental instead, who might not have the same restraints as Sylvia.
“Go for it then, little girl,” another one of them dared her.
They watched as Losana tried to coax her power to the surface, but as usual, there was that... sticky black thing tangled all around her own power and when she tried to separate her power from it, shocks of pain went through her. She stiffened, and forced herself not to curl up into a fetal position in front of them.
“See?” one of the said. Losana wasn’t sure if he was one of those who had talked before or not, and she didn’t really care. “We have enough magic to stop you from using yours.”
It’s not your magic, Losana wanted to yell at them, to take away that satisfied look in their beady eyes, but she realized it didn’t matter. What mattered was she couldn’t call her magic and they knew it.
One of them came towards her, then, with something black and clinking in his hands. It looked like a shackle, but the chain was too long. There was a large shackle on one end, and two little ones on the other. Then, Losana realized that the large shackle was for her neck and the little ones were for her wrists.
Her eyes widened and she took another two steps back, which she realized was a mistake by the gleeful sparks that lit up their eyes, and their maniacal grins. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Losana wondered where Charles found so many of these men or if he really had cloned them. She obviously couldn’t overpower them, she knew, so that left her only her disabled magic.
Her magic hurt every time she tried to get rid of the clingy, sliding black stuff, but what if she didn’t try to tear it away? She shuddered at the thought of purposely letting the remnants of Teagan’s attack course through her freely, but she would much prefer that than to be shackled and taken and the gods-knew-what by these men.
Still, she hesitated. To accept that black... thing clinging to her magic... To let it taint her... And in that moment of hesitation, they had already clinched the shackles shut on her. She tried to kick them, but they only hit her leg. She bit the inside of her cheek to stop the tears of pain. They jerked on the chain, and she felt as if her neck were snapping. She spun around, then, trying to keep them away, but they only laughed more.
In her panic, she pulled on her magic blindly, the tangled black stuff and all. It didn’t choke her magic as she thought it would. It didn’t try to mix into her magic, either. It simply wrapped around all her magic and slid through her naturally. It made her magic feel... fuller, somehow, and powerful, as her own magic never did by itself. She only savored the feeling for a moment before she wondered whom she should call. Sylvia might not answer, and she didn’t know the other elementals well enough to beg favors of them.
Her decision was taken away from her, though, when she heard a voice in her head. Are you in trouble?
It took Losana a moment to place the voice, deep and reverberating through her. It was Teagan’s voice, of course. She decided to worry about how he knew she was in trouble later. She didn’t worry about her fear of him hurting her, either, because... well, her gut feeling told her that if Teagan had truly meant her harm, she wouldn’t have been left spending so much time in boredom and being angry at him. So she answered mentally, hoping he could hear her, Yes. Can you help me? She hadn’t been able to keep the quiver of fear from leaking through.
The next moment, Losana felt the weight of the shackles replaced by a hand around her waist. She turned around to find Teagan standing behind her, immaculately dressed. His gray eyes swirled like pools of mercury, and face was so expressionless that she found herself shrinking away from him, too, but his hand felt as strong as the shackles it replaced and effectively stopped her from going anywhere.
Unfortunately, the six men didn’t seem intimidated. “Charlie was right,” one of them said, seeming pleased by Teagan’s appearance instead. “You are powerful. He just didn’t know that you had already bound an elemental to you.”
He’s not an elemental, Losana thought to herself, and wished he were. He might actually be able to save her, then. But all the elementals she knew appeared as wispy, translucent things and they never bothered doing anything human like eating or sleeping or renting an apartment. Therefore, Teagan was unfortunately solidly human, and though he was stronger than her, Charles must have sent many tricks with these six men. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to make them think that Teagan was more powerful than he was.
The wind picked up, then, seeming to ignore everything but the six men. They held onto each other and the wall and the fridge to stay still. “You’re just an air elemental,” one of the six men said, pulling out something from the pocket of his trouser. “That’s too easy.”
Losana looked at Teagan to see how he took that. She didn’t know quite what she had expected, but it certainly wasn’t the cruel smile he had lining his chiseled features that made Losana shudder and the hair on her neck stand up. Here was the proof to her earlier gut instincts. This, she thought, is how he treats people he dislikes, and so he must like me somewhat, no matter how I thought of him. His mercury eyes looked wild, and Losana wasn’t sure if she should get as far away from him as possible or as close to him as possible.
The room started to dim, then, as if something sucked up all the afternoon sunlight. The air chilled, more than Losana had thought it was possible with the wind. Her ears and nose and fingers started feeling numb with the chill and she swore that she could see her breath in the middle of July.
When it was all dark—and Losana blinked a couple of times to make sure that her eyes were still open and then decided to hold tight to Teagan—Teagan’s deep voice whispered through her blindness, “This is your warning.” Losana assumed that he meant the men, but still shivered at the raw power behind his voice. “Now leave.”
Then, it was all over. The last of the afternoon sunlight streamed through the window. The door was slightly ajar, with dirty footprints on the ground where the six men had been. They’re gone, but it was too close this time, Losana thought. If Emily had been here for them to threaten... If I couldn’t use my magic... If Teagan hadn’t been here...
Teagan stood beside her and rubbed soothing patterns on her back. His eyes were a soft gray, gentler than any eyes she had ever seen. “It’s okay, now,” he said softly. “It’s all over now.”
“It’s not okay,” Losana said, and was annoyed to find her voice wobbly. “What if... What if you hadn’t come?”
“But I have,” Teagan answered simply.
She jerked out of his hold, and felt all alone as the cold wind brushed past her. “What happens next time? You can’t promise to come every time.”
“I do,” he replied seriously, surprising her into stopping her tirade and looking at him. His eyes looked gentle and serious and trustworthy. All the sharp cruelty were gone, as if Losana had imagined it—and maybe she had, considering how frightened she was and how much she hated those men herself. Teagan took her hand in his, drawing her away from her thoughts. His hand was large and warm. “I can promise to come every time, and I do. I will be wherever you need me to be.”
“Nobody can do that!” Losana yelled at him, grabbing him with his arm with her other hand, as if she wanted to shake sense into him. It felt warm and solid and strong under her hand. “It’s not humanly possible, and I do not appreciate it when people lie to me so blatantly. I’m not a three year old, and I’m not so easily fooled.” She paused in her tirade, but he said nothing. She continued, then, as if her anger at him would give her strength and keep her from breaking down in fright. “And even if you could do such things, why would you?”
“I promised you I wouldn’t let anyone endanger you,” he answered, surprising her again. She hadn’t been expecting an answer. He pulled her close and placed a chaste kiss on the top of her head, his lips turning up in a smile as they brushed her soft, brown waves of hair and he felt her giving up her weight to him. “And I always keep my promises.”
at 12:50 AM Labels: elemental desire fiction story
Chapter Ten – Dreaming Truths and True Dreams
Voldemort slammed his fist down on the arm of his throne in a rare show of temper. His eyes blazed red in his dark throne room and the stone walls echoed his sibilant voice ominously. "How dare you tell me that they have refused my alliance?"
Typhulus found himself trembling as he bowed in front of Voldemort. "They have not refused your generosity, My Lord," Typhulus tried appeasing his Dark Lord's anger. "They have merely refused to see the inevitability of it."
The Dark Lord stood up from where he was seated. His steps clicked loudly against stone floor. Typhulus could vaguely see the Dark Lord's black robe swirling in the dim interior of the room.
Finally, the Dark Lord stopped. "They want Harry Potter dead before they will join an alliance with me?" the Dark Lord asked rhetorically. "Then they will get a dead Harry Potter. It's not as if I hadn't planned on killing him anyways. I just wanted to attain the secret of immortality before the little project."
"My-My Lord," Typhulus stuttered, not sure of how to tell his Dark Lord that killing Harry Potter was not the best idea to encourage the vengeful Nightmares to cooperate with the Dark Lord. "Even the Nightmares do not have the secret to immortality. They die when their chosen mate dies."
"Just because you don't have the answer doesn't mean the rest of them don't," the Dark Lord hissed. "Besides, we'll have to overcome this little problem anyways, since I don't plan on dying. It is rather troublesome that four of my seven horcruxes have already been destroyed, though."
Harry found himself wandering through the empty hallways of Hogwarts as he dreamed. He knew he was dreaming, because not a single candle was lit and yet Harry knew exactly where he was: He was on his way to Draco's room.
As loud as his footsteps were, Harry thought that he really ought to have woken up. And even though he tried to wake up, he found himself walking closer and closer to Draco's room.
It was going to be another one of those dreams, Harry could tell.
Soon enough, Harry was in front of the door to Draco's room.
In these dreams, he somehow bypassed the Slytherin common room. If it would only be so easy in real life. Then, Harry would have no problem confronting Draco about these dreams in the first place. As it was, Harry hesitated between facing a legion of unfriendly Slytherins and being caught out after curfew.
There was never a word spoken between Harry and Draco. The door simply opened. Harry went in, as he always did. Draco was sitting on his bed, waiting.
If Harry was honest with himself, he would admit that he actually could enjoy these dreams, where there was no tomorrow, no yesterday. There were no enemies, no enmity. Where there were only Draco and Harry and there was Harry and Draco. With an understanding so complete between them that no words were ever spoken.
However, they were only dreams. Besides, Harry was sure that Draco was sending them to Harry, and Harry thought he would enjoy these dreams if they were private.
Besides, Harry found that sleeping with somebody in his dreams, while pleasant, quite exhausting. In this way, Harry had had little sleep in the past week and found himself nodding off in classes other than History of Magic. When he wasn't staring at Malfoy, that was.
So, Harry thought desperately of a way to, if not wake up, at least change the direction of the dream. Hurry it up a little. Make it end quicker. Or at least not so exhausting.
In his dream, Harry sat down next to Draco, and Draco draped himself on Harry's back. Draco's pale blond hair tickled Harry's neck a little and Draco's hands rubbed soothing patterns down Harry's back, under his shirt.
There were kisses in Harry's dreams. Draco planted butterfly kisses all the way down Harry's neck, and Draco's soft tongue traced the faint teeth marks on Harry's shoulder, leaving it a little chilled as Draco moved down Harry's back.
With a sigh, Harry leaned back, and both of them collapsed on Draco's soft bed, no doubt custom ordered from some exclusive furniture maker.
The silk sheets rustled softly as Draco turned both of them over, so that Harry lay on his stomach, with Draco's comforting weight on top of him. Somehow, the candles in Draco's room had gone out and their clothes had disappeared so Harry could feel Draco's warmth in sharp contrast with the cool night air in the Slytherin dungeons.
It was a dream, after all, and inexplicable things happened in dreams all the time.
Which reminded Harry quite jarringly that he was in a dream, which he shouldn't be dreaming, for various reasons, the most practical of which was he needed true rest.
But as experience had taught Harry, he couldn't wake himself up from his dreams.
Although, Harry thought desperately as he tried not to be pulled under the soothing patterns Draco was drawing on his chest, the delicate fingers skimming carefully over bare skin, touching but not quite touching spots Harry had never known were so sensitive...
Maybe an interruption would help. Some sort of interruption.
Like a third wheel to cool the scene.
Which reminded Harry abruptly that somebody had said something about a third person.
Lavender.
She had offered to be there if Harry ever needed a third person. This would be the perfect time, even if Harry was just thinking it his dream.
Harry tried to picture Lavender.
She was tall and thin, with straight brown hair—this week—and really long eyelashes—longer than even Draco's. Harry pictured her with red lipstick, a bit of blush, and a touch of eyeliner, since Harry had never seen her without any of those three. A Hogwarts school robe completed the picture.
A sudden weight fell onto the bed.
Harry looked over, and to his immense shock and relief, he saw Lavender there, just as he had pictured her. She smiled brilliantly at Harry, her white teeth shining unnaturally in the dark room.
Harry smiled back hesitantly.
Apparently, Draco—the Draco in the dream—noticed that Lavender was there, too. Suddenly, both Harry and Draco were fully dressed. Harry still lay on the bed, but Draco stood stiffly beside the bed.
When Harry looked over at Draco, he found cold silver eyes piercing through him. Then, Draco gave Lavender an even more glacial look, if it was possible.
Then, all went black as Harry fell into a dreamless sleep.
"What did you do with Lavender?" Hermione demanded at breakfast.
"What?" Harry asked, confused. For the first time in a long while, Harry felt actually refreshed in the morning. In fact, he couldn't remember any dreams from last night, nightmares or otherwise. "I didn't do anything with Lavender."
"Well," Hermione said doubtfully. "Don't look now, but she's got to have at least a pound of makeup on her—I'm not exaggerating—and she's been sneaking looks at you all breakfast."
Ron turned from his breakfast to join in the conversation. "So?" He asked, after turning around and looking at Lavender. "Lavender's always looking at Harry anyways. And I think you should worry more about a filthy Slytherin looking at you."
Automatically, Hermione looked across the table, and found Blaise's blue eyes on her. Seeing that he had her attention, Blaise blew her a flying kiss, making Hermione blush furiously. She looked away quickly. "I have no idea what Blaise thinks he's doing."
Ron looked between Hermione and Blaise suspiciously. "Are you sure you didn't do anything with him?"
"Nothing that would elicit this kind of reaction." Hermione paused. "We just had a walk on Saturday."
Ron's brown eyes widened. "You had a walk with him? You took your time away from studying and walked with him?"
Hermione shrugged, trying to be nonchalant. "I had most of my homework done already."
"You took time away from studying to go on a date with Blaise Zabini!" Ron exclaimed, throwing his hands up into the air before collapsing onto the table. He muttered, "What is this world coming to?"
"It was not a date," Hermione refuted. "It was a spur of the moment walk to the lake and back."
"You went to the lake?" Harry asked. Even Harry knew that a walk around the lake was the standard date on Hogwarts campus.
"What do you mean spur of the moment?" Ron questioned. "For you, maybe, but he probably planned it all along. Probably's been planning it for months, the sly, sneaking Slytherin."
Hermione rolled her eyes in exasperation. "You are just being paranoid. Besides, if I wanted to date somebody, I can. It's not like I'm seeing anybody."
"B-b-but..." Ron trailed off, not quite sure of what to say to that. There was just something not quite right about Hermione dating somebody. To Ron, there was Harry, the hero, and there were Hermione and Ron, Harry's friends. He had never even thought about Hermione dating somebody—Victor had just been a one-time thing—and it sat uncomfortably in his chest.
"What is important, though," Hermione continued. "Is why Lavender is still looking at you like that."
This time, Harry couldn't resist looking over at where Lavender sat. She was whispering something with Parvati, as usual. Girl stuff, they had said once when Harry had asked in second year. He hadn't bothered asking again.
When Lavender caught Harry looking at her, she flashed a brilliant smile at him.
"I told you I dreamed true," Harry heard Lavender say.
"Ooh," Parvati cooed, and then lowered her voice so that whatever she said next was unintelligible to Harry.
"Ugh," Hermione intoned in disgust. "Not some stupid divination thing again."
Unfortunately for Hermione, Hermione, Ron and Harry all caught Professor Trelawney's name distinctively in Lavender and Parvati's conversation.
Harry continued eating his breakfast. "I really didn't do anything with Lavender, see?"
Hermione looked at Harry suspiciously before finally nodding. "I suppose it's not really your fault if she dreamed some random girlish dream."
"But you did do something with Zabini," Ron said in an accusative tone. He wasn't going to drop it.
"Yeah, well?" Hermione asked. "Ron, you're one of my best friends, but you are not my boyfriend. Therefore, while I am glad you care about whom I decide to date, you have no authority to tell me whom to date. Or not date. Blaise happens to be a very nice person and a perfect gentleman."
Harry heard Ron mutter something under his breath. Something about money and position and purebloods.
"I didn't hear that," Hermione said loudly. "And I'm not sure I want to. At least Blaise can speak clearly and articulately to express himself."
Hermione decided to eat her breakfast stoically.
Ron sighed.
Harry asked half-heartedly, "Who wants to tryout for Quidditch team?"
It seemed as if the entire Gryffindor house showed up for Quidditch tryouts, even the first-years who obviously would not qualify and the girls who had never shown any interest in the sport before. Harry thought that there might even be a Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw in the mix.
The Boy-Who-Lived himself was the captain, after all.
Harry sighed as he eyed a couple of first year boys dubiously. He could hear them talking about being seekers, a position that Harry himself occupied and did not plan on giving up. At least he could tell them that.
For the Keeper and Beaters Harry needed, though, he would have to give everybody a fair tryout, even if Harry already knew that they were not qualified.
"Alright," Harry said through the cacophony, but nobody seemed to have heard. He took a deep breath. "Alright!" He shouted.
Instantly, the crowd quieted, as if waiting a show to begin. Harry looked over the crowd hesitantly before announcing, "The try outs for Beaters are first. If you want to try out to be a Beater, please line up here."
A minute passed as people shuffled around.
When there was finally a semblance of a queue in front of Harry, he decided he might as well go ahead. "I'm going to let out the bludgers," Harry explained as he gestured to the field. "And four of you will hit it at each other. I will decide who's best."
Harry looked back to see if people understood, only to see Lavender at the head of the line. "Lavender," he said. "I didn't know you're interested in Quidditch."
"Oh, of course," Lavender replied, surprising Harry. "I'd do anything to protect you, including keeping those evil, nasty bludgers away from you."
"Um... okay." Harry was at a lost as to how to respond.
It turned out, though, that just as Harry had assumed, Lavender was completely unqualified to as a Beater. Normally, high heels wouldn't matter on brooms, but one of Lavender's flamboyant red high-heels fell off during the try out, causing her to panic.
"Oh, the heel is going to break!" Lavender shrieked desperately as she watched her shoe fall, while the other three Gryffindors were still trying to heat the bludgers. Unfortunately, one of them hit Lavender straight in the face. Harry thought that Lavender probably broke her nose.
The next thing Harry knew, Lavender was sprawled rather awkwardly on the ground with her broom several feet away from her and the other three Gryffindors were descending too. Harry approached Lavender carefully. She lay unmoving, and didn't make any noise except a very faint groan.
"Um, Lavender?" Harry said. "I think you'd better go see Madame Pomfrey."
Lavender said something, but the lawn muffled it so that Harry couldn't understand it.
"I'll bring you to the infirmary, okay?" Harry offered. He actually felt rather guilty for not stopping Lavender earlier. Bludgers were rather nasty, and he had known that Lavender would not make the team. He really should have just told her so.
Looking around, Harry saw that everybody had formed a ring around Lavender. He told them, "We'll do tryouts another time."
Harry slung one of Lavender's arms awkwardly around his shoulder and together, they half hopped, half limped to the infirmary.
"Are you okay?" Harry asked.
Lavender seemed almost delirious, though. "Okay, okay," she muttered. "I'd do anything to keep you safe, Harry."
"Um, I'm actually quite safe at Hogwarts."
"Did you know Parvati and Padma are seers?" Lavender asked incongruously. Without waiting for Harry's answer, she continued, "Well, I'm a seer, too, because last night, I saw myself with you and Draco."
"Uh..." What did Lavender expect Harry to say? "I think it might've just been a dream."
"No, no," Lavender waved Harry's theory away. Or she would've, but her hand only moved minimally. "I felt it, that it was real. Besides, I didn't know that Draco had his own room—but I dreamed it. I asked around today, and it was true."
"Okay," Harry accepted, even though he still wasn't very convinced. He thought everybody knew that Draco had his own room. At least, all the Slytherins knew. But then, Slytherins were very good at keeping secrets.
"You know, Draco was looking very sexy on top of you when I dropped onto the bed," Lavender continued and tripped a little so that Harry staggered under her weight.
Harry thought the bludger must have hit Lavender pretty hard, or she wouldn't be saying things like this. Fortunately, they were almost at the infirmary. When Lavender healed, Harry could pretend that this conversation hadn't happened.
Still, the last part of what Lavender said triggered something in Harry's memory. Sure, Harry had dreams with Draco on top of him, but the part about somebody dropping onto the bed.
"Oh, bloody hell," Harry cursed aloud as they arrived at the infirmary. Lavender had dreamed true, even if it wasn't about the future. Harry only just remembered his dream.
Madame Pomfrey was nowhere in sight. So, Harry took it upon himself to lay Lavender down so she could at least get some rest. And he could get some rest, too. As he put her down, though, somehow she didn't let go of him and they both tripped onto the bed, so that Harry found himself on top of Lavender.
"Um, Lavender?" Harry said as he tried to untangle himself unsuccessfully. Lavender seemed determined to hold onto the corner of Harry's collar. "Can you let go?"
There was no response from Lavender.
Suddenly, a cold voice said behind Harry, "Don't worry, Potter, it's all the same if I amputate her arm."
Draco could feel the cold anger that had been swirling just beneath his consciousness finally coming to a head.
No matter what had happened before, Potter had always been at the center of it. In first year, Draco had taken Longbottom's Rememberall, and Potter had chased him. Through the subsequent years, they sneered at each other, hurled insults at each other, and dueled with each other. But every time Draco had done something, Harry had responded.
Except for now.
Because of the bond, Draco had been plagued with dreams, hot, heavy, lusty dreams. Not only did Draco never dream before—Nightmares had no souls, little subconscious, and generally gathered dreams more than made them—these dreams always ended with an unsatisfied and rather frustrated Draco.
And while it was true that these dreams featured Harry Potter, the dark-haired, green-eyed hero of the wizarding world, Draco found it strangely disturbing that the real Harry Potter had no visible reaction to these nightly apparitions that plagued Draco.
Last night, though, a very strange occurrence took place in Draco's dream: Brown had appeared.
Throughout the day, today, Draco had pondered over the meaning of the girl who had designs on Draco's mate and could possibly—very unlikely, but still possibly—severe the bond that was forming between him and Potter.
Draco had decided to restrain himself from any action against the Gryffindor girl only because he had thought that even a Gryffindor shouldn't be blamed for something that had happened merely in a dream.
However, when Draco saw Harry walking with Brown down the hall, he had found himself in a rare state of shock. Still being understanding, though, Draco had waited, rather unnecessarily. In fact, he had almost decided to leave once he saw the pair of Gryffindors arrive at the infirmary.
Staying true to Slytherin values, though, Draco had decided to stay just in case something did not go as it should. Something didn't.
Draco found his mate and a girl engaging in foolish flirting—and perhaps beyond flirting—on a bed.
Harry was Draco's, Draco vowed. All of Harry.
If Harry was angry, he took it out on Draco. If Harry was upset, Draco would notice. If Harry laughed, it would be with Draco by his side. And if Harry decided he needed a little lusty entertainment, he should certainly go to Draco.
That Harry had decided to go to Brown...
It made something ugly in Draco raise its head.
"Actually, if it's all the same to you, I'd rather you don't," Harry said carefully, as if sensing that Draco felt more than usually antagonistic.
"It's not the same to me," Draco replied evenly. "I think I'd feel much better if I cut of her arm."
Harry had managed to unwind Lavender's arm from around his neck. He looked around, but Madame Pomfrey remained conspicuously absent. "Why don't we talk about this outside?" Harry asked.
"I think the conversation is just as well in here," Draco said. "Give me one reason why I shouldn't cut off her arm."
"Um..." Harry was at a loss as how to reply. All the obvious reasons—compassion, empathy, simple self-preservation from the wrath of Headmaster Dumbledore as well as Harry Potter—seemed not to apply for the Nightmare in front of him. Finally, Harry said, "You're supposed to be my ally, remember?"
At this, Draco snorted, and then laughed a strange, dry laugh. "Your ally, Potter, not your slave, and only for the war. Lavender contributes less than nothing to the war. Besides, even that is only after you have accepted the bond." Draco took a menacing step toward Harry. "Why haven't you accepted the bond yet?"
The bed was just behind Harry, but Harry told himself that he wouldn't have backed up anyways. He was a Gryffindor, and he wouldn't bow to Slytherin filth. Even if the Slytherin filth looked rather attractive and was rather powerful.
"I have accepted the bond," Harry replied evenly. "We have a bond. I can't break it. I accept it. What more do you want me to say?"
"It's not about saying anything." Draco shook his head slowly, so that his pale hair fluttered in front of his face. "It's about believing. What do you think magic is about, Harry? It's about believing." Draco paused to look at Harry and to make sure that Harry was still listening. "We killed God because we made sure nobody believed in him anymore."
Harry found himself fascinated by Draco. There was a certain... charisma that Harry had never before encountered in anyone else. It was if time slowed down for Draco. Harry could only point out, "But you believe in God."
"Ah." Draco smiled self-depreciatingly at this. "But we don't have souls, and so we don't have magic. Or rather, Lucifer already has all of our souls so it doesn't matter if we believe in God or not."
Harry had no reply to this. While Uncle Vernon and Aunt Veronica claimed to be Christians, Harry had never even seen a Bible in their house, even after all the cleaning he did. He knew little more than what Seamus had told him, which was very little.
"So God is the Christian God, then?" Harry asked.
Draco eyed Lavender suddenly, but decided that she could wait. "Of course there's a Christian God," Draco replied. "I imagine there's a god for every one that somebody believes in. God didn't make people; People made God."
"But you said something about Lucifer..."
"Yes, well, some people made God. Then, they gave him a son. They also made angels, and one of them was Lucifer and some of them were Nightmares. Things you make up in your mind can get out of control. So it is with things many different people make up." Draco paused before continuing. "Of course, if you don't believe in God, there is no God for you. But it's not about saying. It's about believing."
Harry found himself having a little trouble with this. God was God—Harry wasn't sure which God. People could choose to believe in him or people could choose not to, but shouldn't the god remain the same god?
Harry's relief at having distracted Draco was short-lived, though, when Draco said, "Magic is about believing. For example, if I believe I can cut off her arm, I can."
Harry looked behind him apprehensively, and Lavender had only one arm. Harry wasn't sure if it was a good sign that there was no blood. Harry could see the white bone and red fleshy stuff where Lavender's arm was truncated, making it somehow surreal.
He turned back to Draco, and was just about to somehow make Draco undo the amputation, when Draco waved his hand negligently in the air. "Or I could choose to make you believe that I have cut off her arm. Of course, if you believed it hard enough, you would've been the one to relieve her of her arm, not me."
Harry found Draco's smile rather unsettling and he thought he certainly wasn't in the mood to appreciate Draco's humor.
"Well, maybe not," Draco corrected himself. "It's difficult for you wizards and witches to do wandless magic, simply because your spirits are not as good at focusing. Still, if you believed hard enough..."
Draco sighed as if in regret. "Well, you didn't. And I hadn't made it real because I decided it wasn't worth the effort. You would just ask me to grow it back anyways."
Hermione turned to Ron impatiently. "Tell me what we are doing again."
"Shh..." Ron admonished. "We are spying on the Slytherins to see what evil designs they have."
"No, we're not," Hermione said, gesturing impatiently. "We are staring stupidly at an empty gray wall that leads to the Slytherin common room and we don't even have an invisible cloak to hide underneath."
"Well..." Hermione's logic was mostly infallible, Ron had learned from the past five and some years. "We can always claim that we want to speak to Malfoy or something."
"Right," Hermione answered sarcastically. "Because you are always willing to speak with Malfoy without violence involved. I think we're better off telling them we're seeing Blaise or something."
"That's a brilliant idea!" Ron surprised Hermione by saying. "That's exactly it. We're here to tell Blaise that he has to stay far, far away from you and that if he touches even a single hair on you, Harry and I will send him to the darkest pit in Hell where he won't ever see the sun ever again."
"Besides the various obvious illogical and redundant references in your sentence, can I say, 'not this again'?" Hermione rolled her eyes. "You really have no jurisdiction over this part of my life, and besides, you don't honestly expect me to be a spinster, do you? Even Harry has a mate."
Ron was saved from having to answer when Nott burst out from the Slytherin house.
Fortunately for the two Gryffindors, Nott didn't seem to notice them at all. Instead, he was muttering to himself as he stared angrily at the floor. "I can't believe Malfoy," they heard him mutter vaguely. "I'll show him. I'll show them all with my Lord. I'll show them when the dementors come flying, because of me. Then, I'll see what they have to say."
When Nott disappeared around the corner, Ron and Hermione left the Slytherin entrance by tacit consent.
Once they were back in the Gryffindor common room, Hermione burst out, "Nott is planning something."
"Of course," Ron answered. "He's a Slytherin. Being a Slytherin is synonymous with 'planning something.'"
"No, I mean, Nott is planning something on a grand scale. Voldemort is involved. So, apparently, is Malfoy."
"What?" Ron asked, alarmed. "You mean Nott is planning something with Malfoy for Voldemort?"
Hermione pursed her lips in thought. "I don't think so. I don't think that Malfoy can betray his mate like that. But Nott definitely mentioned Malfoy's name."
"Wait, wait, wait." Ron waved his hands frantically. "Who gave you the only book on Nightmares?"
"Blaise," Hermione answered slowly, not seeing Ron's point.
"Exactly." Ron continued triumphantly, "And Draco Malfoy is known to hang out with who the most?"
"Blaise..."
"So, if Draco wanted to plot something," Ron concluded. "And he wanted to throw you off track, he would give you a book with wrong information. Since it'd be suspicious if he handed it to you himself, he would have somebody else do the dirty work."
Hermione frowned thoughtfully, and finally shook his head. "I don't know. I can't see Blaise doing it. Besides, wouldn't Dumbledore have known if Malfoy wasn't telling the truth?"
"I always knew that Blaise was planning something," Ron said, more to himself than to Hermione. "And, well, Dumbledore... he hasn't been here much for the past three weeks. How would he know what Draco has planned? Draco could very well be a Nightmare, but we still don't really know what they are."
"But Nightmares and Nightmares is a famous book," Hermione protested. "I've read about it in several different other books."
"I'm not saying that it's not, but how do you know that the version you have is the actual book. It's not that difficult to make a book with false information and a false title."
"Fine, I suppose it's possible," Hermione relented reluctantly. "So, what do you think we should do?"
Ron answered without pausing, “What we've always done, of course. Watch over Harry."
Hermione added, "We should tell him."
"He might not believe us."
"But we should tell him anyways."
Chapter Nine – Dance
Theodore found himself in Professor Snape's office Friday before lunch. He shifted and looked around the room, not quite sure what he was waiting for. All Professor Snape had said was to come to this office. Honestly, Theodore couldn't remember doing anything incorrectly, and certainly, Professor Snape had never favored him the way Malfoy was favored.
At the thought of Malfoy, Theodore's lips curled. The younger Malfoy had been the golden boy—of the Slytherins, that was—since the first day of school. While Malfoy certainly came from an ancient bloodline, the Nott line was not incomparable. Malfoy was a prat besides, even if Theodore hated to agree with Gryffindors.
The senior Malfoy was worse. Theodore always saw him strutting around as if he owned the world, which he did, in a sense, but only because the Dark Lord gave it to the senior Malfoy. Now that Malfoy had it, he decided to leave the Dark Lord.
It wasn't senior Malfoy's disloyalty that Theodore held in contempt. Loyalty was a rather stupid concept. Rather, it was Malfoy's stupidity. After all, didn't Malfoy think that the Dark Lord could take back what he had given? Well, it was all the same to Theodore.
Actually, it was better. Because before Malfoy's rise, Theodore's father had been on the rise as the Dark Lord's second. Of course, that was impossible now because he father got himself rather unfortunately imprisoned in Azkaban. Still, Theodore was a Nott, and he knew enough to be able to gain the Dark Lord's favor, if not eventually become the Dark Lord's second.
He did, after all, have the special trinket he was waiting for an opportunity to present. As soon as he fixed it...
The door to the office opened. Thirty-seven seconds late, Theodore noticed. These teachers thought they could do anything they wanted.
As Theodore looked up, though, it wasn't to see the greasy black-haired professor. Instead, Malfoy, Lucius Malfoy, stood just inside the room, closing the door to the office deliberately. On Malfoy's face loomed a smile that Theodore didn't quite trust.
"Nott," Malfoy acknowledged. "Just the person I wanted to see."
Theodore held back a glare. Malfoy was stronger than Theodore, and Theodore wasn't a Gryffindor. One day, though, Theodore promised himself that he would show Malfoy who was the bigger man. Even if his wife had already agreed that Theodore was better.
"Malfoy," Theodore greeted in kind, treating Malfoy as an equal. "What a surprise. I was actually expecting Professor Snape."
"Oh, Severus." Malfoy took arranged himself comfortably on a seat. "He was kind to do me a favor and arrange this little meeting between us."
Dammit! Theodore thought, you'd think that Headmaster Dumbledore would be powerful enough to know who should be good enough to be a professor. Of course, Headmaster Dumbledore had never quite championed for the Slytherins the way he did for the Gryffindors.
"What do you want?" Theodore spat, and then realized his mistake.
Malfoy only chuckled. "Shouldn't the question be what do you want?"
Theodore felt cold sweat seeping down his back. Malfoy hadn't managed to take over his father's position for nothing. "I know what I want," Theodore finally answered.
"Okay," Malfoy accepted easily. Too easily. "Well, then, I'm here to teach you that you can't always have what you want. Or who you want."
There was a strange glint in Malfoy's silver eyes—a trace of madness—as he waved his hand airily.
Theodore heard a crack and felt something hit his chest. Looking down, he saw that his robe had ripped and there was blood seeping through. He looked up at Malfoy with undisguised surprise. But that strange smile was still on Malfoy's face.
Unconsciously, Theodore took a step back. He glanced at the door, but it looked closed, and he doubted he had enough time to get out before Malfoy put a restraining spell on him.
There was another crack and Theodore winced as pain hit him again. This time, though, Theodore had anticipated the pain and it wasn't as bad. In fact, it was almost pleasant in its familiarity, the way father had always disciplined him.
"Normally," Theodore heard Malfoy say. "I find physical pain very crude. In this case, however, I have a limited amount of time and I did promise Snape to return you to him the way I found you."
Theodore wasn't sure how, but Malfoy seemed to be wielding an invisible whip. After several more slashes, Theodore barely felt them anymore, just a little ripple of tingling as the whip fell.
Theodore snorted contemptuously. "Even you can't heal me that fast."
A signature Malfoy smirk appeared on Malfoy's pale face. "But I can."
Apparently, Harry found out, Nightmares could plant dreams other than nightmares, and while he was grateful that Draco kept his promise—Harry hadn't even had any Voldemort-induced nightmares—he wasn't quite sure what to make of his new dreams.
During the past week, Harry had found himself more often than not falling asleep just to dream of pale flesh, flushed with excitement, silver eyes molten in passion, and light, golden hair, as soft as air.
There were sheets in Harry's new dreams, twisted and drenched in sweat. There were candles sometimes, flickering somewhere far away. Or there were the faint twinkles of stars. And sometimes, Harry found himself doing some things with Draco that Harry was sure couldn't be right, but he found himself enjoying it nonetheless.
Surely, Harry thought, Draco must have something to do with his new dreams—they weren't quite fearful enough to be nightmares—because Harry was sure that he could never even come up with these things by himself.
Not only did the dreams take over most of Harry's time asleep, Harry found that he couldn't concentrate during the day either.
Take now, for example. It was DADA class on Friday, the last class before the weekend began. Harry really ought to be concentrating on Professor Snape, since the Professor was bound to assign some nasty essay for the weekend.
Or at least, if Harry's mind decided to take a trip to another place, he should be thinking about the Hogsmeade trip next weekend. Or Quidditch tryouts he really needed to get started. Or the Halloween ball that was coming up.
Instead, all Harry found himself doing was staring at Draco's back, wondering if Draco's flaxen hair really felt as soft as it had in the dreams. It certainly looked just as pretty, like pixie dust sprinkled on golden silk.
Harry found himself admiring Draco's neck, too—where Draco's hair fell just past his ears, a pale, ivory column that stood just so. Unlike most sixteen year olds, Draco had no acne or spots and his neck was no exception. Just staring at Draco's neck from behind, Harry thought that Draco looked rather protect-able.
For the most part during the lesson, Draco stared idly ahead, at where Nott sat just in a row in front. From time to time, though, Draco turned his head to where Professor Snape was, and Harry could just make out the muscles and veins moving in Draco's neck. Then, Harry would remember all the wonderful things he did to Draco in the dreams... and all the wondering things Draco did to him in the dreams...
Surely, all teen-aged boys had dreams like this. Harry thought that this must be what Seamus was talking about two years ago. And what keeps a constant stream of muffling spells in the boys' dorm. Surely, even Draco couldn't make dreams out of nothing.
Still, Harry did not appreciate Draco making Harry's hormones manifest in these particular dreams.
Harry decided that he would have to talk with Draco. Lines would have to be drawn.
As soon as Harry figured out how to broach the subject.
Draco had thought he would enjoy Harry staring at him, after all those dreams he'd been plagued with, thanks to his Nightmare instincts.
Honestly, before mating with Harry, Draco had never thought about the Boy-Who-Lived in that way. Potter was a hero. Potter was a Gryffindor. Everybody loved Potter, and treated him like the celebrity he was.
Of course, Draco had had liaisons, mostly discreet, short term ones. A teen-aged boy had to enjoy himself somehow. Draco was just lucky that he was as good looking—and as well connected—as he was that he didn't have to depend on magazines.
Ever since he had placed the mating mark on Harry, though, Draco had found that there was something... different about Harry.
It wasn't just his black hair and pale skin; Blaise had that, too, although not quite the same messy bedroom looking black hair. It wasn't the brilliant green eyes, either, with the clearest expressions that Draco had ever seen. Although, Draco thought, any other pair of eyes compared to Harry's would not be green. And Draco had certainly seen—and felt—more comfortable bodies than Harry's rather bony one.
There was just something...
Draco decided that that something was definitely his Nightmare instincts. There was no other explanation.
However, his father didn't seem unreasonably attracted to his mother. And his mother was quite attractive. Draco decided to shove that discontinuous thought from his mind.
Speaking of his father... Draco looked ahead, to the back of Theodore Nott's sandy colored head. The Notts were an old line, and Nott, Senior was a prominent Death-Eater. Theodore himself was in Draco's year and as a weedy-looking boy, had no exceptional traits that Draco knew of.
So, the question would be: Why would Draco's father be interested in Nott at all?
When Draco had first walked into the room, he had been shocked to find the signature of his father's magic permeating the room. Identifying certain familiar strands of magic was an ability unique to Nightmares, since they pulled on each other's magic regularly.
Not finding his father in the classroom, Draco had tried to find the focus of the magic elsewhere. Draco had found Nott.
Draco wondered what father had done with Nott, and hoped that it didn't jeopardize the bond between Draco's parents. There were some things Draco didn't understand about being a Nightmare—he wasn't a bookworm and had yet to finish the second chapter of Nightmares and Nightmares, which he started about three years ago. But it seemed to Draco as if it would be a bad idea for Nightmare to have an affair, if Draco's own instincts rang true.
Of course, his parents could just be interested in spicing things up a little.
"Thank you for taking time away from the DADA essay to walk with me," Blaise said as he walked with Hermione.
It was Saturday. The sun was shining. The birds were chirping. And there was nary a cloud in sight. Blaise rather thought that if Hermione didn't enjoy the weather now, she'd have to wait until April, and that was a long ways away.
"That's no problem," Hermione replied. "I've already finished it."
Blaise stopped walking, and Hermione stopped beside him. He looked at Hermione carefully. "But Professor Snape only assigned it yesterday."
"Well, I like getting work done early." Hermione shrugged a little self-consciously. "It's not like I finished all my homework on Friday."
"Oh, pray tell." Blaise grinned wickedly. "What homework haven't you finished?"
"Umm..." Hermione paused to think as they sat down on the grass next to the lake. "Well, I still have two pages of Differences Between Wild Herbs and Weeds that I haven't finished reading yet."
"And?" Blaise prompted.
"Nothing. That's it."
Blaise mock groaned into his hands. "First of all, it's only two pages. Secondly, that's not due until next week."
Hermione shrugged a little.
"Wait, wait," Blaise said. "Don't tell me you finished evil Professor Vector's homework already."
"Okay," Hermione agreed. "I won't tell you that I already finished it."
"So, did you?"
Hermione looked at Blaise for a moment. "I'm not telling you."
"But don't you think she's evil?" Blaise asked. "She assigned three charts for five days."
"Seven days," Hermione corrected.
Blaise looked at Hermione balefully. "Weekends do not count toward days to do homework."
"I don't see why not." After a pause, Hermione added, "Besides, Professor Vector isn't evil. The only evil professor I know of is Professor Snape."
"Nah," Blaise disagreed. "Professor Snape is really quite understanding."
"To his compatriots in the Slytherin house, maybe," Hermione allowed. "But to the rest of us..."
At this, Blaise laughed aloud. "Well, it's not as if he's the only biased head of house. Professor McGonagall quite favors Potter."
Hermione reflected on this and sighed. "I suppose."
"Seriously, though," Blaise said, his tone suddenly grave. "Slytherins aren't all evil."
"Of course not," Hermione agreed. "All evil are Slytherins." She took a careful look at Blaise's expression, which seemed oddly pensive, for such a sunny day. And for somebody who claimed not to do homework on weekends. "Can you honestly say that you are not planning something?"
Blaise raised his hands up in a sign of defeat. "Alas, you've found me out, Hermione. I've fallen in love with you."
As expected, Hermione laughed at Blaise's antic. Still, Blaise found that it hadn't been as difficult to say as it should have been. Usually, lies still felt odd and stuck in his throat when he said it—which was why he resorted to carefully truth-telling most of the time. Perhaps, he was finally getting past that stage.
"I mean," Blaise continued. "Maybe Salazar Slytherin had a not-so-pure motive."
"That's one way to put it," Hermione muttered.
Blaise turned the full force of his blue eyes on Hermione. "But think about it, what kind of eleven-year-olds' most distinctive trait is cunning? Children don't learn to be cunning unless it's all around them. Unless they need to use it. These are children who grew up knowing that if they asked for something, they probably wouldn't get it. So they find another way to get what they want."
"Maybe." Hermione's tone made her doubt clear, though. "But that still doesn't make it right."
"But neither is leaving a child all alone all the time. Or not giving him food. Or making him go through 'education' and 'discipline' that really aren't legal."
"No... But don't you think these children should have learned that what their parents do aren't right?"
Blaise smiled a little at Hermione's innocence, where a world was truly black and white. "How do they learn? The world they're in is the world they learn about. And then even when they do go to school, they are placed with other children from the same kind of families. What can they learn, but that the world works this way?"
"I see what you mean." Hermione looked at the lake in front of her. The giant squid hadn't made an appearance yet. "They really shouldn't separate the houses the way they do."
At this, Blaise shook his head regretfully. "Not all of us can be saved, you know. Slytherins can't become heroes like Harry Potter."
"Of course they can," Hermione ascertained forcefully, startling Blaise. "Harry Potter became Harry Potter."
Blaise laughed. "Of course. But he's also a Gryffindor."
Hermione sighed and pursed her lips, debating whether or not to tell Blaise. Finally, she said, "Well, the sorting hat almost put Harry in Slytherin."
"But it didn't."
"Only because Harry asked for it." After a pause, Hermione added, "He didn't want to be in the same house as the murderer of his parents."
A bird flew past, above Blaise and Hermione's heads, as Blaise fell silent. They got up to walk their way back to the castle. There was a companionable silence as Hermione took her time to enjoy nature, and Blaise thought about what Hermione said.
Finally, at the entrance to the Gryffindor house, Blaise took both of Hermione's hands and said, "Thank you."
Hermione smiled back at him. "Like I said, not a problem."
Blaise didn't hold on as Hermione pulled her hands away from his. "Thank you anyways."
"It's been over thirty days," said Typhulus as he started his request. "And the chosen mate of the prince has yet to accept the bond."
"Yes, it's been over thirty days," Lucius agreed. "It's been thirty-one days. Today."
"And it is unlikely that the chosen mate will accept the bond despite the contract," Typhulus continued calmly, as if reciting a memorized speech, about which Lucius had a rather strong suspicion. "In which case, Harry Potter would have willfully killed the prince."
Typhulus swept his hands outward, so that the long white sleeves of his High Councilor robe waved dramatically. The golden embroidery glittered under the multitude of candlelight in the High Councilor Chamber.
"Therefore," Typhulus's voice rang out more confidently. "I propose that in order to avenge our prince, let us form an alliance against his murderer: Harry Potter."
After a momentary silence, Cray stepped forward. "Our prince is not dead yet, and let us not consign him to death by killing his mate. Then, we would be his murderers."
"Also," Saybran pointed out. "Let us not forget that there is yet another fifty-nine days until the process of choosing substitute Prince would begin, according to l'ancienne loi. Or that although Harry Potter had not yet accepted the bond, neither has he rejected it."
"Yes," Typhulus agreed reluctantly. "But there is only another thirty days until the contract the chosen mate signed comes into affect. It is almost as binding as an Unbreakable Vow. And we all know what happens when an Unbreakable Vow is broken."
Lucius stepped forward. "It is not quite as binding as an Unbreakable Vow, though."
"In either case," Typhulus said, ignoring Lucius. "I suggest we have an alternative plan."
"Of course," Lucius agreed. "An alternative plan is always a good idea, to be put into action after the primary plan fails. Although, I doubt that our prophesized prince would fail to live up to expectations."
"Prophecies only tell the probable future," Typhulus said. "Besides, the idea of 'redemption' is so vague that who knows what he is supposed to bring? Perhaps our prince is meant to bring us all to the next world and face Lucifer."
"Don't be blasphemous," Saybran rebutted sharply.
"Blasphemous?" Typhulus laughed incredulously. "Head High Councilor, have you forgotten that we killed God?"
"Of course I have not," Saybran snapped. "But I think you, High Councilor Typhulus, might have forgotten that our prince is our idol."
"So," Typhulus pushed impatiently. "How do the High Councilors agree regarding an alliance with Voldemort?"
Lucius stepped forward, but Saybran interrupted Lucius by saying, "I think we can agree to consider the possibility, if Harry Potter does not accept the bond in thirty days." Saybran took his responsibility to maintain order within the High Council in the prince's absence very seriously.
"If Harry Potter does not accept the bond in thirty days," Saybran continued. "We will first select a new Prince, who will decide whether or not to form this alliance." He turned to Typhulus. "I hope that you are content that the possible selection of a substitute Prince would be thirty days sooner."
When no High Councilor offered any objections, Typhulus bowed his head. "Very well, then, as the High Council agrees."
at 1:20 AM Labels: fanfiction harry potter prince of nightmares story