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Curly Hair, Feathers and Flame

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Narcissa had invited The Slug Club to hold their meetings at her house. She was a practical girl, when not distracted with love-sickness, and she knew that the only way she was ever going to get into the Slug Club was with careful flattery, a few boxes of crystallized pineapple, and an offer to host one of their gatherings. Narcissa was not the sort to let a lack of talent stand in the way of her advancement.

Slughorn, who felt that beauty was an achievement in itself, was only too happy to acquiesce. Besides, Narcissa’s father had an excellent wine-cellar, a selection of comfortable, leather-upholstered chairs, and made his own brand of wizard tobacco – which emitted multi-coloured smoke and tasted of caramel. Slughorn was very partial to it. An inexhaustible supply would be exactly to his liking.  

The place was beautiful – one of those leaning, oak-beamed buildings in Diagon Alley, set back from the main shopping streets, and surrounded by ornately-twisted iron railings and oak-trees. The sky was thunderous above it. There were steps leading up to the forbidding front door, but Slughorn took one look at them, made a sour face, and hovered up them casually. Slughorn was ingeniously lazy. The Slug Club trooped after him, Lily lingering at the back of the group with Margot Holloway.

She was cheerful, as usual, but her spirits were a little oppressed. She wasn’t sure why – she missed Severus, but she had learned to live with that. It was easy: you just buried your head in sympathy; you immersed yourself in other people’s problems, and paid close attention to the world outside yourself. Whenever Lily was upset, she became relentlessly interested in everything. She noticed things like the colour of people’s shoes, or the number of freckles on their cheeks.

Margot had eight freckles, evenly dispersed, as though her face was a join-the-dot puzzle. Lily mentally joined the dots while Margot talked about her latest Potions Experiment. It involved dissecting Pygmy Puffs.  

She hadn’t seen Severus since he’d left Professor McGonagall’s Transfiguration lesson, sick, that afternoon. And now he’d failed to turn up to Slughorn’s party. And Bellatrix Black was rampaging about the castle, jinxing boys with a curse that seemed to Lily – who’d been near Potter when Bellatrix had got him – to be little better than the Cruciatus Curse. Certainly, it caused the same deathly pallor and agonized screaming.  

She was worried. He’d seemed so distracted recently – he hadn’t even laughed when Pettigrew turned his own nose into a teacup in their last Transfiguration lesson. He wasn’t angry anymore: just determined, and she wondered what it was he was determined to do.

Could he be upset that she was spending so much of her time with Potter? But, if he cared about her, why did he treat her like this? Why did he call her a Mudblood, hit her over the head with cauldrons, and use the Cruciatus Curse on Malfoy right in front of her? And then – as if that wasn’t enough – he’d tried to intimidate her into keeping quiet about it!

Security was very tight around the Slug Club these days, because You-Know-Who’s rise to power was making everyone jumpy: Slughorn had hired two burly security trolls to accompany them on their field-trips. They were dressed in suits – well, suits had been draped over them – and they were holding ferocious-looking clubs.

“I don’t think they’ll be much good if He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named does decide to turn up,” Margot said dreamily.

Lily was silent for a while, peering into the shadows behind the railings. “What do you think about him?” she asked suddenly. “You-Know-Who, I mean?”

“He’s quite brilliant,” Margot replied. “But he does seem to take a lot of things on trust. For example, he thinks muggle-born witches and wizards are inferior, but I haven’t been able to establish with any degree of certainty that you’re inferior to the rest of the students here.”

“Well, keep trying,” Lily said cheerfully. She was subsequently to regret this.

The interior of Narcissa’s impressive town-house in Diagon Alley made Lily start.

She had heard that the Malfoys – the only other pure-blood family who equalled the Blacks in importance – only cared about pleasure. But the Black family was clearly traditional. They liked things to be old-fashioned – even if that meant uncomfortable, stone-flagged floors and narrow, slit-like windows. They knew the value of darkness and discomfort. It made an impression on your visitors; it implied that you were too rich to care about frivolities like soft beds and good eyesight.

But someone had done their best to make this place comfortable – even festive. It looked like a chintzy cemetery. The floor was stone-flagged black marble, but it was spotlessly clean, and covered with tasseled or tiger-print rugs; the sofa was an ornately-carved gothic pew in chilly grey granite, but someone had arranged pink cushions on it. The shrunken heads of old House Elves were mounted on the walls, but – Lily stared – there were daisy-chains hanging around their necks. Skulls had been turned upside-down and filled with pot-pourri.

“Professor Slughorn,” said a voice in the shadows, making everyone jump, which had clearly been the voice’s intention. “Allow me to welcome you, and your students, to my humble home.”

It was Aloysius Black, chief warlock of the Wizengamot, and Narcissa’s father. And, while Slughorn blustered up to the man and started wringing his hand, Lily looked in vain for a family resemblance. Aloysius Black was stooped and wolf-like; he had straggly, yellow-grey hair that reached down to his shoulders, and he wore black robes. These, too, were suspiciously clean – and had clearly been ironed, because there was a neat little crease running down each sleeve.  

Narcissa was standing beside him. She looked paler than usual, and was staring at her shoes. Some of the vicious vitality had gone out of her, but she could still manage a haughty stare in response to Lily’s inquisitive one.

“Of course, you all know my daughter, Narcissa.”

“Too well,” Sirius Black muttered under his breath.

“And this is my wife, Oblivia.”

Oblivia Black had shiny, but oddly motionless, chestnut ringlets, and wore turquoise robes, with a frilly apron pinned over them. She had a white-toothed, slim, elegant kind of beauty. She looked like a Barbie doll or a glamorous 1950’s house-wife – everything about her was lacquered and fixed. There was something robotic about the way she flicked her hair, the way she hardly ever blinked and constantly smiled.

She looked as though her only possible connection to dark magic would be as some kind of virgin sacrifice at a black mass. And, even then, she would have had to have been gagged, because her voice was about as dark as a fluffy pink cardigan. She was everything that deflated the mystique of dark magic. Lily wondered how Bellatrix Black could share half this woman’s genes.   

“This house was purchased by Claudia Black, my renowned mother.”

James Potter snorted derisively at this, but said nothing.

“Usually, one can see a portrait of her there,” Aloysius went on smoothly, motioning towards an ebony picture-frame that was empty of its occupant, but had the painted background of a dungeon laboratory: the kind of room that Dr Frankenstein would have been proud of. “But, I regret to say, her appearances are… sporadic. She comes and goes as she pleases, as she always did in life.”

Was there a slight edge of bitterness to his voice as he said that? Lily knew she must have been really worried about Severus, because she was finding everything so compulsively interesting. She wouldn’t have thought it possible that she could ever be captivated by Aloysius Black.

“I daresay many of your exceptional students have a connection with my family,” Aloysius went on, in a more cheerful voice.  

“Actually, one of my students is muggle-born,” Slughorn replied, in a voice that was carefully casual. He indicated Lily, who was standing behind them.

“Indeed?” said Aloysius Black, focusing his beady eyes on Lily. “How refreshing. I am so glad that you have been able to fit in, Miss Evans. It must be very difficult for you – though, I do hope your delicate situation does not entitle you to preferential treatment from your teachers.”

Narcissa sniggered. Slughorn, his moustache ruffling, began to insist that Lily was a perfect student, and had no need of preferential treatment. Lily herself just stared back at him coolly.   

She needed some air. When Aloysius Black recommenced his lecture about the history of the house, she pushed her way through the crowd, and out of a door that led into a little walled-garden at the back of the house. This was just like the house itself – very pretty and tidy and tame, with sculpted hedges and (the floral equivalent of lace doilies) fussy little beds of petunias, geraniums and sweet-peas, releasing their scent unobtrusively onto the night. Lily longed to see something climbing and wild, something that wasn’t pink or patterned or sweet-scented. Narcissa’s whole house reeked of her sickly-sweet perfume; all the canapés had tasted of it.  

She gave a start to find that Margot was at her elbow.

“Aren’t you enjoying the party?” she asked, in her far-away voice.

“The party is fine; I just don’t like the people in it.”

“He was rather insulting,” Margot sympathized, in a tone that contained no sympathy whatsoever. “I find it fascinating that people can leap to conclusions without knowing all the facts. How can you form an opinion about muggle-borns without a proper chemical and anatomical comparison between them and pure-blood wizards? – or at least compiling statistical records on the grades of muggle-borns throughout the centuries that they’ve been admitted to Hogwarts – though that data might be misleading – I daresay social factors like prejudice and persecution would bias your results.”

Lily made a non-comittal noise, staring desolately at the neat rows of marigolds and sweet-peas in front of her feet. She had the oddest urge to stamp on them.

“But the house is fascinating,” Margot went on dreamily. “Aloysius Black has a collection of Unicorn Skeletons.”   

“See, why does everything have to be skeletal?” Lily asked peevishly. “Why does everything have to be dead?”

“I suppose because skeletons last longer, and take less looking after,” Margot answered, with that talent for literal-thinking that made her such an excellent, and unpopular, student.

“It’s a shame the portrait of Claudia Black is empty,” Margot mused. “She was an extraordinary witch. Did you know she had Stygmalian fever, but she transferred the symptoms to her House Elf so that they wouldn’t disrupt her work?”  

“Yes,” Lily said coolly.

“Professor Slughorn says her third husband is buried out here. We’re near Highgate Cementary, you see, and the Princes have a vault there. Claudia Black bought this house to be near his resting-place, apparently. I say ‘resting-place’ because he isn’t actually dead. He’s in a magical coma. He broke into a cursed tomb in Egypt when he was twenty-one and fell into a magical sleep. He has never woken up, though the curse seems to have extended his life-span. The Ancient Egyptian wizards are rumoured to have a curse that prevents a person from dying, although their bodies still fall to pieces. I’ve tried re-creating it on a rat, but that died within an hour. I think you need a special kind of Cyprus-flower.”  

Lily, who had felt a little jolt in her stomach at the mention of ‘the Princes’ was now feeling a nagging sense of déjà vu. The memory was slippery – just when she thought she’d caught it, it would dart out of her grasp. It was like trying to catch a fish with your bare hands. Still, the memory affected her emotions where it couldn’t affect her mind: she felt her skin prickle, and the colour rose in her cheeks, as though she was embarrassed or excited or angry or elated. She just didn’t know which.  

“You mean Moribund Prince?” she asked.

“Yes,” said Margot, with an air of maddening patience. “I understand it was a nick-name. His real name was Maurice. Shall we try to find him?” It wasn’t a question; more an inclusive statement of purpose. Her tone said ‘I’m going to find him, but I don’t mind you tagging along.’ Lily, who was still trying to work out where she had heard about Moribund Prince, followed without hesitation.

Everyone had married him. There had been curly hair, and feathers, and flame.

Lily ran her fingers through her hair, as though to check its straightness. It was like trying to remember a long-distant dream. None of it made sense, and yet it seemed so real.

Margot was sliding back the bolt on the door at the end of the walled garden.

There had been a bolt on the outside of a door. And only certain people could see it.

And they walked into a moonlit garden. This was everything Lily had longed to see a moment before. This was wild and joyfully untidy. There was Convolvulus – with its heart-shaped leaves and white trumpet-like flowers – climbing over more twisted oak-trees. Everything was greenish-black and shiny in the moonlight.

And in the centre, half over-grown with ivy and the choking Convolvulus, was a little glass coffin.

Lily was reminded of the legend of Snow White. But this glass was not transparent; it was begrimed with filth, and patterned with patches of lichen and moss. It was cracked in places, too. There were splintery fissures running down one side of the coffin, as though somebody had smashed into it.

There was a figure within, certainly – dressed in black, undoubtedly – unless the blackness of the night, and the dirt, and the climbing plants, was bleeding into the coffin itself. But they couldn’t make out features, or even body parts. Lily felt a thrill of horror at the idea that this recumbent figure was still alive – perhaps dreaming. Maybe he could hear them. For the moment, every thought of her slippery memory was driven out of her mind, in an intense rush of horror and sympathy.

“How does he breathe?” she asked.

“There are cracks in the glass,” Margot pointed out calmly. “When I was a little girl, my father used to tell me that he walked around at night. But I never paid him much attention. It was obvious that a magical coma couldn’t be intermittent. That would contravene Golpalott’s Fifth Law of Conjuration: a spell’s potency will diminish in time, if - ,”

“I know Golpalott’s Fifth Law of Conjuration,” Lily said impatiently. “I want to see his face. Can you help me clear off some of the muck?”

Margot made a little tutting sound, and waved her wand, muttering: “Evanesco!”

The grime and ivy vanished. Underneath was a pale face that looked so much like Severus’ it almost made Lily cry out. While she stared at it, Margot was saying. “I daresay it’s difficult, when you’ve been brought up by muggles, to instinctively think of magical solutions to everyday problems. Magic will never be second-nature to you, but perhaps that is just as well. Children who have been raised in the wizarding world use magic lightly and inattentively. You only need to look at that Potter boy…” Margot paused, noticing – at last – the horrified look on Lily’s face.

“He can’t hurt you,” she said patiently. “Golpalott’s Fifth Law of Conjuration, remember?”

Lily had brought her hand up to her mouth, and was staring at the hook-nosed face with a kind of horrified recognition.

“Margot,” she gasped, trying to latch on to something familiar, trying to remember where she was. “I’ve just remembered…”

Everything. The Rosura Potion – the Hufflepuff boys she’d kissed – the light in the dungeon classroom where she’d waited for Severus – untying his tie clumsily – laughing – planting kisses all over his face and neck – and he’d kissed her back – he’d said she was amazing.   

She looked up at Margot wildly. She wanted to absorb her calmness, her scholarly detachment, her weird, underwater brand of calm.

“What is it, Lily?” Margot asked, going through the motions of concern, but without any of the conviction.

“I think… Dumbledore… stole my memories,” she muttered.

But Margot never had a chance to question her further. There was the sound of hurried footsteps in the garden, and Slughorn came into view, wheezing and flushed.    

“Lily,” he said, in as agitated a tone as a creature like Slughorn could muster. “I’ve been looking for you. Something’s happened. I need to return to the castle. Will you see to it that the students take the Floo Network back by ten? I know I can trust you.”        

He looked extremely anxious. His moustache was ruffling with his speech and the lazy, contented note in his voice was gone. “What’s happened, Professor?” she asked.

Slughorn glanced twice over his shoulder, and then leaned close to her and whispered. “Caladrius is gone.”

“What?”

“Left the castle. Whether the fellow left under his own steam, or whether he was taken, nobody knows – but Dumbledore wants him found. There are…” he paused uncomfortably, “interested parties, you see.”

Lily, who didn’t see at all, but recognized the agitated and evasive way that people – even powerful wizards like Slughorn – talked about Voldemort, felt a stab of fear for her dear friend.

“Can I come with you?” she asked. “I could help you look; I know his favourite places in the castle.”

“My dear, Dumbledore has ways of determining whether or not somebody is within his castle. The fellow is most definitely gone. And I need your word that you’ll take care of the students.”

“Yes, sir,” Lily said, feeling a strangling sense of helplessness. “What will the… interested parties… do with him, sir?”

“I am happy to say I’ve no idea. I wish to continue to have no idea. In this day and age, Miss Evans, nothing protects a man like whole-hearted and determined ignorance.”  

And he Apprated on the spot. Lily stared at the space where he’d been with wide-eyed sorrow. This was too much. Severus had loved her, and she’d betrayed him, she’d thrown herself at his worst enemy – and now another of her precious friends – poor Professor Caladrius, who had enough troubles without Voldemort adding to the load – was lost to her.

Without thinking, she looked at the Ideoscope he’d given her; she’d pulled the sleeve of her robes over it and forgotten about the thing, although her wrist had been tingling underneath the leather wrist-band now and again.

The face of the compass was an opalescent white, but shifting, as though it was filled with swirling cloud. It seemed that Mr. Mysterious in New Zealand had woken up, and that the terrors in his head were not particularly terrifying. But then she thought: perhaps he’s blocking his thoughts from me: perhaps he’s using Occlumency: this is probably what a visual representation of an Occlumency state would look like.

What could he be trying to hide? Did he know anything about Caladrius? It now struck Lily that she had a source of information that Dumbledore didn’t. If this colleague, half a world away, but presumably a close friend of the Divination teacher’s, knew anything about where he could have gone…

While Margot droned on about Slughorn’s irresponsible and erratic behavior, Lily saw the mists within the compass thinning, and then a stone corridor appeared. There were rooms branching off it: one doorway was exuding thick green smoke, but that was passed by. The next doorway led into a circular stone chamber, like the Divination classroom, with wooden benches rising in tiers around a central platform.

“He’s coming,” said a voice. It didn’t seem to be proceeding from the compass, but arrived straight in Lily’s head, as though she was reading the words.

“I’ll bite my tongue out before I tell him anything,” said another.

The face of the compass filled with mist again. Lily couldn’t see the central platform, but the voices filled her with an ominous, penetrating cold, as though the mists had leaked into her body, and were swirling around her suddenly-hollow chest.

She knew them. But they were so different from how she knew them. They were filled with immeasurable hatred now, resonating with bitterness, but she was used to one of them being filled with fond exasperation, and the other with gentle, almost absent-minded, horror.

She pulled her sleeve back over the Ideoscope, and tried to block out the voices, but they would go on.

“You know, the day your enemy dies is going to be the worst day of your life.”

“I’ll live,” said her oldest, dearest friend, “which is kind of the point, isn’t it?”
And a chronological chapter, to balance out the plotlessness of the last submission. This happens after A Taste of Things to Come, Parts One and Two. I'm still kind of getting into the habit of writing, after a little break, so I hope this isn't too tedious. I liked writing about Oblivia Black. Hopefully, she'll come into it more often. The memories that come back to Lily in this chapter take place in Rosura, Parts 1-8, and the conversation she hears through the Ideoscope takes place in A Taste of Things to Come, Part II.
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Did Dumbledore really leave her memories of Severus buried, or take them? But, but why? DX

Also, she might be about to see her oldest, dearest friend do something unforgivable. Oh no, oh no, oh no ;-; I'm glad she finally remembered though, I was wondering if that was going to be permanent!