Harry Potter and the Knife of Hephaestus

                All that was talked about the next day was the untimely (or timely, depending on your point of view) demise of Mrs. Norris. Fred and George slunk from class to class, their ears going bright red in the Weasley style whenever someone mentioned the incident. Many of the older students, the Slytherins in particular, hailed them as heroes, while one exceptionally bold and sentimental Ravenclaw second year positively scolded them.

                They were late to lunch that day. They grabbed their seats next to Harry with wild grins on their faces. "What´s with you? Ron asked his brothers curiously, swallowing a large chunk of food with some difficulty.

                "We just had Slayt," George informed them loftily. "It seems that she has a cat of her own."

                "She really chewed us out!" Fred exclaimed, reaching for the pumpkin juice. Apparently, the guilt of Mrs. Norris´ death was fading. "The good thing, though, was that we used up half the class with her talking to us."

                "The bad thing, though," George put in with a grimace, "Is that she´s as good as Snape in the verbal abuse department."

                Harry, Ron, and Hermione winced.

                "Yeah, we know. But, in the end, I think we did an okay thing. No doubt she´s in her rooms right now, telling puss to avoid redheads," Fred finished, winking cockily.

                Damia was, in fact, in her rooms. But at the moment, she was more likely to be encouraging Icicle to accept treats from the Weasleys than the opposite.

                "Infernal animal," she muttered, picking up a page of notes. "I´ve lost a week´s work thanks to you. There is an overabundance of mice in the dungeons, if you want to chase some, go down there." She put a mortar and pestle down on the table somewhat herder than she needed to. "I don´t know why I put up with you."

                Icicle yawned.

                "I most certainly do not love you anyway," Damia said, her irritation growing by the second. "And if you carry on like that, I´ll be able to supply Severus with a new potions ingredient: blood of telepathic cat."

                Icicle jumped off of the desk she had been sitting on and pranced her way out of the room, not even pausing to look at Damia as she yowled one last time before disappearing through the doorway.

                "Even if you are my familiar, you´re still telepathic. And I am not touchy," Damia muttered, although whether she was speaking to Icicle or herself wasn´t clear. She picked up a rag and began mopping up a spilled potion. Opening the drawer to try and salvage whatever the potion had leaked onto, she saw what was probably the last thing in the world she wanted. It was that damn book again.

                Only this time, no one was about to knock on the door and make her put it away. Raising the familiar cover, she smiled as she saw the first picture. It was her, at age sixteen, surrounded by rejoicing Slytherins and raising a silver trophy to the sky. A broad grin was on her face, and Damia noticed how different it made her look. She had grinned like that only a few times in her life. Once, in her first year, when Armina had shown how little house rivalries meant to her, and how much her sister did. The day Lily said that old grudges be damned, Damia was going to be in her wedding. And the time in the photo, the day she had won the Quidditch cup for Slytherin. She watched the photo as a girl with thick auburn hair came up to her photographic self and the two hugged, both laughing delightedly. She remembered that day very well.

                The weather that day was horrific. For mid-April, it was abominably cold, and most of the students come to watch the deciding Quidditch match, between Gryffindor and Slytherin, were blowing on their hands and wrapping their scarves more tightly around their necks. Across the field, at the Gryffindor locker room, she saw a scarlet-robed figure shiver distinctively. She smiled a smile that was better described as a smirk. The cold had never bothered her.

                Time seemed to move abnormally quickly after that. She had only a flash of memory of walking out onto the field to the cheers of one quarter of the crowd, and boos from the rest. Madam Hooch she had always tuned out, this time was no different. But she remembered very clearly the handshake between the two captains, and those coffee-colored eyes staring into her own with a hard challenge. Damia allowed her mouth to raise slightly in an acknowledging smile. Then the game began.

                Damia was busy from the start. One of the Gryffindor Chasers, a speedy girl with curly brown hair had managed to take hold of the Quaffle and was racing towards the Slytherin goalposts. Damia hissed in frustration, urging her broom to higher and higher speeds, doing her best to catch up with the girl.

                She was aided by the Bludger that swept across the girl´s path, forcing her to stop short and allowing Damia to neatly pull the ball from her grasp. Damia held the Quaffle under one arm, using the sleeve of her robe to cover the ball as best she could, hoping to hide it from the other team. Of course, it didn´t work, just as she had known it wouldn´t. Her flying, normally graceful, was interrupted several times as she was forced to dive, swerve around, and even flip upside down to avoid the Bludgers sent at her. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw James Potter, coffee-colored eyes narrowed, hot on her tail. She ignored him, she was almost to the goalposts.

                She didn´t even wait to get there. With an almost imperceptible flick of one wrist, she tossed the Quaffle through the hoop further away from her. The Keeper wasn´t quite fast enough, and a cheer rang up from the green-clothed section of the crowd.

                The Gryffindors, outraged that the Slytherins had scored first, retaliated furiously. The Slytherins, not to be outdone, matched them goal for goal. After two hours, the game was at a tie. Damia prayed that the Snitch would be found soon.

                But the Gryffindors were tiring. Slowly, slowly, Slytherin began to pull ahead. Soon they were leading by fifty points. Then one hundred. Then one hundred and forty. One-quarter of the crowd was going wild with excitement, while the other three-fourths were howling with rage. Damia smirked lightly. Apparently, the Gryffindors didn´t take too well to having their captain and champion, the one and only James Potter, beaten. Especially by a Slytherin.

                The score was 210-360 when a cry rang out from a small Hufflepuff. "The seekers!" he cried. "The Snitch!" And sure enough, both seekers were in a steep dive, eyes fixed straight ahead on some object Damia couldn´t see, but knew had to be the Snitch.

                Her heart froze. The Gryffindor seeker was so far in the lead, the Slytherin would never catch up. The game would be a tie. She had not a moment to spare.

                She grabbed the Quaffle from the hands of the blond Gryffindor who was watching his seeker intently. Ignoring his cries, she pushed her broom as fast as it would go, and faster. She felt the wood underneath her begin to wilt, she was pushing it past its limits. It could very well fail right here and now, and leave her to fall to a broken neck. She pushed it harder.

                And threw the Quaffle past the keeper and through the hoop just as the Gryffindor seeker triumphantly closed her hand around the Snitch.

                "The score is 360-370! Slytherin wins!" Lily´s voice rang out through the crowds. Announcing, she had seen Damia´s last goal. The Gryffindors, about to fling their hats into the air, stopped, shocked. Damia floated down to the ground, a smug look on her face. "Slytherin wins the Quidditch Cup!" Lily, though a Gryffindor, sounded genuinely happy, almost as happy as Damia was, with the crowds of Slytherins swarming about her, and Dumbledore, bless his ancient heart, presenting her with the silver cup. Grinning broadly, she raised it to the sky, ignoring the flashes that went off in her face. No doubt it was that Ravenclaw shutterbug again, there was always at least one.

                "Damia!" She turned and saw Lily running toward her, congratulations written all over her face. The two embraced, laughing. Out of the corner of her eye, Damia saw James Potter, looking sulky and obviously unhappy that his girlfriend was celebrating the fall of Gryffindor. Damia shook her head, and put James Potter out of her mind, concentrating on the here, and now, and how to milk being the new Quidditch star for all it was worth.

                Damia smiled, a ghost of her grin as she flipped the page of the old photo album. On the next page was a photograph of her and Lily, both smiling happily. She glanced at a nearby mirror, then back at the photo, grimacing. Her mother was right, she had grown into her nose. She sighed as she looked again at the smiling girls in the picture.

 She remembered that time, also. It had been the seventeenth birthday of one Sirius Black, organized by his parents and held in a fancy dining hall with three sets of silverware for each place setting. Naturally, Sirius hated it, and professed his eternal gratitude to Damia for agreeing to be his date and teaching him which fork to use. Halfway through the dinner, Sirius had jumped up, grabbed Damia´s hand, and dragged her out of the banquet hall. Not to be left out, James, Lily, Remus and Peter had followed, and the six had spent the evening comparing chocolate milkshakes at various Muggle drive-through restaurants.

Lily waved happily at Damia from her perch on the hood of the Muggle car Peter had owned, a lime-green Volkswagen made exciting by the chance that the engine could explode at any second. As a joke that night, they had each worn robes of the other´s House colors. Damia was arrayed in splendid scarlet and gold, while Lily was regal in green and silver. There had been some commentary on how the traded colors suited them better then their usuals.

                She watched as her photographic self raised a paper cup filled with thick liquid in a mock salute to Sirius, who had entered from the side of the frame. The photo Sirius leapt at the two girls and hugged them. Damia heard a tinny scream as both girls´ images fell backwards, and the chocolate shake flew up into the air.

                A rowl from the bedroom jerked Damia out of her nostalgia. Icicle stood by the door, meowing furiously at Damia, whose eyes widened almost imperceptibly. "You´re right," she muttered, closing the old photo album and putting it away. "I´ll see you later tonight," she added, slipping her cloak about her shoulders and sweeping out the door. Icicle watched her go, then returned to her warm spot on the bed, grumbling about errant humans and their duties.

                Professor Slayt was late to class that day. When she entered the room, her long black cloak sweeping out behind her like a pair of wings, every Gryffindor in the room was instantly silent.

                "I have some news," Slayt informed them, her eyes daring them to ask what it was. "The Knife of Hephaestus has been stolen."

                Gasps issued from several members of the class, who then went bright red and tried to sink into the floor, Seamus in particular. They had all learned enough about the Knife at this point that they knew what it could do, in the wrong hands. "Professor," Lavender said, raising a tentative hand. "I thought the Ministry was guarding it. Wasn´t it safe?"

                Slayt sighed, rising from her desk and moving around in front of it. The class leaned forward in anticipation; these movements always meant that she was about to share a particularly important piece of information. "Miss Brown," she began, her face carefully empty. "You will find, in the future, that whatever our Ministry is doing, it will usually turn out wrong."

                "That´s awfully cynical," Dean pointed out.

                Slayt smiled wryly. "That´s empirical, Thomas. In all the years that I have been around to see it, the Ministry has never accomplished anything worth mentioning. It is absolutely useless."

                "That´s not true," Dean protested. "We need some sort of government; otherwise there would be absolutely no order."

                Slayt shifted position slightly, a sign that she was interested. "That, in itself, is true," she admitted. "But you are not understanding what I´m saying. My point here is not that we don´t need a government, but that the government we have now is a bad one. The corruption within the Ministry is endless, and the only ones who rise to any sort of power are mindless sycophants, who are useless when it comes to handling difficult situations. Look at our current Minister, he is an excellent example. When You-Know-Who managed to find a new body, Minister Fudge refused to acknowledge his rebirth. But we´re off the topic. Back to the Knife."

                "Who stole it?" Parvati asked. Slayt smiled blandly.

                "Officially, we do not know. Unofficially--- well, can´t you guess, Miss Patil?" Parvati didn´t answer, and Slayt continued. "With You-Know-Who holding the Knife´s power, he would be nearly invincible. Thankfully, he does not yet know how to use its full power. There are only five people who have ever unlocked that particular secret."

                "Who are they, Professor?" Harry asked, his curiosity taking over his desire for the Defense professor to leave him alone.

                Her lip curled in a sneer, albeit an elegant one. "One was the great wizard Merlin. It´s speculated that he taught it to a witch under his tutelage, but it was never confirmed. The next was Rowena Ravenclaw, one of the founders of this school. She disappeared one day, right out of her bedroom, and the Knife was found lying on the floor by her bed. Most people think that she accidentally trapped herself in another world, but there are some who think she was murdered by Salazar Slytherin."

                "What do you think, Professor?" Dean asked.

                Slayt answered, "I am of the former party. There was never any evidence of her death, and, Slytherin never tried to lay claim to the Knife. After Ravenclaw came a wizard named Martin Applesherry. He took great delight in using the Knife to confuse Muggles. I believe there was an American ship that he transported all people aboard to another world, leaving the ship itself adrift in the ocean, completely devoid of people. The Muggles still talk about it. It was Applesherry who gave the Bermuda triangle its reputation, and any disappearances that occur nowadays are from unclosed bidimensional doorways, or residual magic from the Knife. Next in the line was Fiona Roxton, the last member of the Ravenclaw bloodline. She was killed by the Dark Wizard Grindelwald when she refused to tell him about the Knife, where it was, and how to use it. She was given a hero´s funeral, although I´m sure that was cold comfort to her friends. She was twenty-one when she died, had been married for under half a year and was two months pregnant. She was tortured to death." All the people in the room, Slayt included, winced slightly.

                "And what about the last person?"Seamus prompted.

                Slayt looked at Seamus, and he shrank back slightly. "Her name, age, physical description, and location are all classified information, Mr. Finnigan. But I´ll tell you what I can. She is alive today, which puts her in incredible danger. She, like all the rest of the people who knew the way of the Knife, lives here, in the United Kingdom. The Knife is an English artifact," she added, "And our Ministry is reluctant to give information about it to foreigners. Which makes it impossible for anyone not from this country to learn enough about it to work with it. Are there any other questions?"

                "Is she clever?" Hermione asked, looking as though she had just found herself a new role model.

                "They say she´s incredibly intelligent, although I personally wouldn´t know," Slayt answered. "We´ve never been introduced."

                "What is it about the Knife that only five people ever knew?" Ron asked, abruptly changing the subject. Slayt´s mouth twitched, and, if Harry didn´t know better, he would say she looked almost pleased.

                "What the Knife cuts is very difficult to see." Slayt chose her words very carefully. "It takes a very well-trained and talented mind to see the barriers between worlds, for example. The most adept at that sort of work are usually, but not always, trained Seers. Both Rowena Ravenclaw and Fiona Roxton had the Sight. Although," she added, a bit scornfully, "I doubt our esteemed Divination Teacher, Sibyll Trelawney, has the innate talent needed to use the Knife."

                Seamus chuckled slightly, and Slayt graced him with a tight smile. It suddenly occurred to Harry that he had seen a smile exactly like that somewhere. He couldn´t quite remember where. Damia Slayt, Damia Slayt, her smile...

                It hit him without warning. Damia Slayt--- Damien Slayt. His dream came flying back to him in a rush of information, and he yelled out, falling backwards in his chair.

                "Harry?" He heard Ron and Hermione, on either side of him, scrambling to get out of their chairs. "Are you all right?" Hermione´s worried face appeared before his own, with Ron´s just behind it.

                "Potter, do you need to go to the infirmary?" Slayt asked sharply, looking as though she was torn between wanting to get Harry away from her, and being... no, Harry must have imagined it, Slayt hated him almost as much as Snape did. But for a moment, she had looked concerned for him.

                "No," he stuttered, after taking a moment to collect himself. "I´m fine," he stated again, more firmly. And to the surprise of all, he picked up his chair, sat down, and continued with the lesson like everything was normal. Steadfastly, he ignored Ron and Hermione´s curious looks throughout the class. But once class ended, they pulled him to the side of the hallway, and with concerned words, asked him what had happened. In a low voice, Harry explained his dream, and its connection with Slayt.

                "We need to go to Dumbledore," Hermione pronounced as soon as Harry was finished.

                "With what?" Ron asked irritably. "We´ve got no proof. Of anything."

                "Let´s find out just who Damien Slayt is first," Harry said. "I want to know about him."

                Hermione held out that the three should go to Dumbledore, but after a few moments, Harry and Ron managed to talk her around.

                "I never thought I´d hear you say that you didn´t want to go to the library," Ron smirked. Hermione glared at him.

                "I still think this is a bad idea," she muttered. "But I´ve hardly a chance to stop it. We might as well get started."

                "Or," Harry said, checking his watch. "You two go start it. I´ve got Quidditch practice. I´ll come and help as soon as I´m done, I promise."

                "Right," Ron replied. "Better hurry up then. The Captain can´t be late." With a quick "good luck" to both of his friends, Harry set off towards the Quidditch pitch, grabbing their new Keeper, a tiny fourth-year girl by the name of Silver Hogu as he went.

                Practice went well, and Harry was in a good mood as he left the broom shed. Silver had an uncanny talent for reading the movements of the Chasers, and therefore always knew where the ball was headed. She hadn´t missed a single shot.

                "Slytherin won´t know what hit `em!" Fred and George had whooped, as they grabbed Silver off her broom and gave her a Weasley-sandwich hug.

                "Sure they will," the girl quipped,settling back on her broom and brushing back a strand of the short-cut hair that made her look like a miniature elf. "Fred and George Weasley, who else would it be?"

                Harry was smiling as he entered the library. His smile quickly disappeared, however, when he saw the mound of books and scrolls in front of his two best friends. Hermione, facing the door, looked up and saw him.

                "Nothing, Harry," she said, answering his unspoken question. "These records are all out of order! The birth records go from 1959 to 1732, and that´s the lowest jump! The family trees are in no alphabetical order, newspaper clippings- "

                "I´ve been sitting through this for the past two hours," Ron said to Harry in a low voice as Hermione continued with her rant. "She made me go up to Madam Pince about an hour ago and ask for the family trees of names beginning with `S.´ I´m surprised I got away from there with all four limbs."

                "I heard that, Ron!" said Hermione, surprising the other two. "And unless you´ve got a better idea-"

                "I do," said Harry suddenly. "Accio Slayt family records!" A few minutes later, he was forced to duck as a book the size of Hermione came barreling straight for his head.

                "Potter!" Madam Pince shrieked. "No magic in the library! Ten points from Gryffindor!"

                "We´re just lucky she didn´t throw us out," Hermione muttered as Ron heaved the book up off the floor and dropped it onto the table so hard Harry thought the legs might collapse. "Here, let me." She flipped through the pages of the book, muttering to herself. "Slayt, Slayt.... Ah! Here!" She pointed to a name in large block letters at the top of page 478.

"´Damien Slayt.

Family: Born November 12, 1936, to Julius and Cynthia Slayt. Married Hippolyta Lene (deceased) in 1958. Father of Damia Slayt, born 1960, and Armina Slayt (deceased), born 1960.

Current Age: 59

Education: Attended Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Slytherin House alumnus. Prefect.

Career and Achievements: Damien Slayt was the head of Ministry Intelligence between 1968 and 1981. He donated 400,000 Galleons to the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in 1979, as a scholarship trust for Muggle-born students. In 1974, he donated 100,000 Galleons to the Ministry of Magic to build a new Auror training facility. Damien Slayt is now retired, and resides in Slayt Manor, in Scotland.´"

                The three looked at each other. "He sounds like he´s about as close to perfect as possible," Harry said.

                "That´s what worries me," Hermione said darkly. "Here, Professor Slayt´s on the next page."

                "´Damia Slayt.

Family: Born January 19, 1960 to Damien and Hippolyta Slayt (deceased). One sister, twin, Armina Slayt (deceased). Single.

Current Age: 35

Education: Attended Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Slytherin House alumnus. Prefect.

Career and Achievements: Damia Slayt is currently working as a professor at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The official residence of Damia Slayt is Slayt Manor, in Scotland.´"

                "Not much about her, is there?" Ron said lightly.

                Hermione said softly, "I wonder why."

                "Let´s look at her sister," Harry suggested. Hermione´s finger moved to the right.

                "´Armina Slayt (deceased).

Family: Born January 20, 1960, to Damien and Hippolyta Slayt (deceased). One sister, twin, Damia Slayt.

Education: Completed through Year Two at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

in, Damia Slayt.

Education: Completed through Year Two at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Age at Death: 13

Cause of Death: Broom malfunction.

Armina Slayt is survived by her parents, Damien and Hippolyta Slayt, and her twin sister, Damia Slayt. She is buried on the grounds of Slayt Manor, in Scotland.´" Hermione looked up. "She died when she was thirteen."

                "Hagrid did say she died young," Harry said quietly. "That was after the two of you left," he added. "Broom malfunction... I wonder what happened."

                Hermione closed the book. "I think," she said softly, "That we´d best leave the past be." And as her two friends watched, she reached out and slid the book back onto the shelf. As the three walked out of the library, Harry wondered just how big a mistake he was making.