Shadow's Truth

Harry Potter and the Shadow's Truth

By Leanne

Chapter Four

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was unusually quiet for a Saturday evening. Most students would have given anything to roam the corridors; instead, only a memory of what had been lingered. A memory of when the only fear was what grade you were about to receive on the Potions paper you handed in two weeks ago, or how horribly you failed that last practical test Professor McGonagall had given you in Transfiguration. The unnatural quiet was disconcerting when the last of the St. Mungo's Survivors arrived.

Standing in the middle of the Entrance Hall, three long time friends lingered, taking in the sight of the empty halls, the collection of dust that had accumulated over the summer and beginning of term, and the hollow empty sound of wind catching on chipped away cement and mortar. Unfortunately for Lenna, she had never been gifted with grace when travelling by Wizarding means, and thus had found herself seated un-ladylike on the cold floor while her two friends laughed hysterically.

"I am busting with laughter," Lenna exasperated while attempting to find a way to stand without flashing the two boys.

"We've been travelling by Portkey and the Floo System for how long? And you still haven't managed to master a graceful landing." Jonathan laughed, offering Lenna a hand in standing.

"Do I look like I need your damn help?" Lenna cursed as she gave up trying to be ladylike. "Why do I bother? Why do I bloody bother?"

Placing her hands on either side of her, Lenna curled her feet under her, giving Terence and Jonathan a clear view of her knickers, and pushed herself up off the floor. Her foot clipping the edge of her black skirt sent her tumbling into Terence, who had moved to catch her before she fell again. His arms wrapped around her waist while she pressed her face to his chest. She loved his smell, the way the smell of burning wood clung to his skin, but, underneath it all, was simply just him.

Jonathan coughed and brought Lenna back to her senses. She was a married woman now; she had to remember that she and Terence were no longer an item and that her husband would not be happy with her current behaviour. For six years she had been happily married, but then she had been driven away from his side and forced to work extra long shifts at the Hospital...until that stopped and she just remained there. Her work, her job, had become her life, and there was no way she could turn it back and leave. She had to be with her best friends, fighting the good fight, trying to find a cure to the incurable. She was driven from her husband, and the old feelings for her first love had resurfaced. Lenna fought them, as she fought the tears that came to her eyes each time she found a newly dead body to one of her patients.

"If you two love birds are quite finished, we have work to do," Jonathan reminded them.

Lenna pulled away from Terence, but his grip tightened around her waist. She fought against his arms and found she was unable to fight against him as she once had. Her arms dropped to her side, her body calm. She closed her eyes and slowly raised her hand, gently placing it over the hidden tattoo on the back of his neck. Releasing a small surge of magic, she felt him back away from her. She had felt the pain tingle in her hip, but she said and did nothing.

"Don't you ever do that again!" she hissed and walked off towards the Hospital Wing.

"She used the tattoo against you, didn't she?" Jonathan questioned, watching Lenna storm off.

"She always does." Terence sighed and wandered off, muttering about checking the area for security issues.

Fuming, Lenna paced the halls of Hogwarts. Her mind racing, her heart thumping loudly in her chest, her hands clenching and unclenching at the mere thought of what Terence had tried to pull; what she had avoided for three years. Her father might think she was insane for hiding out in the basement of a dusty old Hospital, but there was reason to her madness. She needed the distance between her and Terence, she needed to keep her feelings for him bottled away and allow the ones for her husband to flourish in the darkness.

As much as she wanted to be back at Hogwarts, she knew her old feelings would arise, and she would be forced to acknowledge that she still held love for Terence. As much as she wanted to run from the truth, she couldn't. She could remember all to clearly the last time she ran from the truth, and what it had almost cost her; she wasn't about to go through that again.

She turned quickly and stalked through the empty corridors, hoping upon hope to run into someone, anyone; as long as it was Terence, she was fine. She needed someone to talk to, and unless she planned on making a surprise visit to the Burrow against her father's wishes, she was left with only those at Hogwarts, most of which were under the age of seventeen and had no knowledge in the field of love. Disgruntled, and seething, Lenna made up her mind; she was going to have to speak with Ginny Weasley and hope the young girl had some advice.

Pacing the halls wasn't improving Lenna's mood; in fact, it was only increasing her anxiety and displeasure of being at Hogwarts in the first place. She should never have called for her father, if she had just simply relied on Henderson to just get the supplies she needed, and given herself credit for being able to brew a decent potion, she probably would never have been at Hogwarts. I probably wouldn't have been alive either, she thought to herself and stopped. She knew that she was lucky to have her father in her life, and thankful for it too; but he could be overbearing and overprotective, and that rather annoyed her some.

"You're going to wear a hole into the floor if you keep that up," someone said behind her.

"So what? I'll just fall to the next floor and start again," Lenna snapped and spun around to glare at whomever had spoken to her.

"Don't let me stop you, Snape."

"Piss off, Malfoy!" Lenna seethed, about ready to snap Malfoy's neck for something he had nothing to do with.

"You're fit to be tied." Malfoy chuckled and moved along down the long empty corridor. "Why this corridor? Were the others too dirty for you? Didn't want to be reminded of your cave?"

"Malfoy, if you don't shove off, I'm going to do something I might regret!" Lenna held her breathe and looked around, finally taking in that she had in fact picked the cleanest corridor in the school. "And to answer your question, this happens to be the closest to my patients. Three doors down and to the left is the Hospital Wing, in case you've forgotten. Now if you don't leave me alone, you're going to end up there!"

"You're acting very childish. I'm very surprised by this sudden change in your temper," Draco taunted her, as if no time had pasted since the last time they had seen each other.

Though Draco and Lenna had never really considered one another friends, they had known seen and done things no other witch or wizard would ever admit to. He had, like her other friends had, gone into the depths of hell and fought to gain her soul back. He didn't have to, but he had chosen to, and that had formed a unique bond between the two. They may never admit that they had any connection to one another whatsoever; Lenna knew that she owed Draco Malfoy for saving her soul from eternal damnation. And while, it would be nice to think that Draco didn't owe anything to Lenna that would hardly be telling the truth. Draco, like Lenna, had managed to get himself into a right fix when the Ministry of Magic had suspected him and a few other Slytherin students of being Dark Wizards in league with the Dark Lord, when Lenna and her friends had come to his defence. Life debts repaid, but never forgotten between the two, instead they turned to childish bantering.

"I'll act how I please. Now if you don't mind, I'd rather not be in your company," Lenna replied more calmly.

She had never imagined that Draco Malfoy would be the one to bring her mind back to rational thought. That he would be the one standing there, simply listening, though in slight amusement, to her threaten him and blow off steam.

"I hate you, you know that?" Lenna muttered a confused look adorned on her face. Her fingernails digging half moons into her palms, as she clenched her fists into tight balls.

"Feelings are mutual, darling," Draco replied, staring blankly at the woman who had taught him the Dark Arts and Necromancy in the course of a year.

"Go away, Draco. Just go. I don't have the strength to argue or fight with you. Just..." --Lenna released a heavy sigh and again wished Ginny was around-- "do whatever you want. I'm going to my room to rest."

"Listen, Snape. I don't have all day to listen to you whine about how miserable your life has become," Draco hissed, "but I was asked to deliver a message to you, and I am not leaving here until I've done so."

"Just tell me so I can go rest."

Draco grinned at her defeat, she had give him the power to call the dead, she had give him the power he had wanted. "We are Necromancers, controllers of the dead. Hermione believes that the Shadow is simply another dead thing."

"You've never seen the Shadow, Draco. You've never seen what it can do. Work out in the field long enough and you'll know the Shadow is not just another dead creature. It is the essence of evil, worse than Damian, worse than Voldemort. The shadow is a combination of all things great and evil. You have no idea what you're talking about! Hermione can throw her theory out the damn window for all I care!" Lenna said hoarsely. She really couldn't be bothered to have this discussion with Draco.

"You brought this about, you and your ever so smart friends. You brought us to the house and taught us how to control the dead. Now we have this power, and you simply want us to forget about it! I wanted this power. I wanted never to be controlled by anyone, I should be doing the controlling, and still this Shadow controls our lives. We'll do what we have to." Draco argued, "Ginny believes Hermione, she's done field work to prove Hermione's theory."

"And what, pray tell, have you done?" Lenna snarled tiredly.

"I've funded their research, paid to keep St. Mungo's open, and spent hours pouring over your old tomes in search for an answer to our problem. They're coming here tomorrow, for a meeting. We know Sarah's sick with the toxins and that Harry's gone." Draco said, almost normally, "We're going to find an answer to this problem, us remaining Necromancers. Together until the end." He offered her his hand.

Lenna looked at his hand. "Define 'the end' again? I've spent too many years figuring out the causes of the toxins. I've spent too many years locked away in the basement of the musty hospital taking care of the dying. I've seen too many people die. Harry once told me he was tired, I never understood what he meant, but now I do. I'm exhausted. We say goodbye to one villain long enough to see another rise in his or her place. I'm sick of this. I want to rest from fighting. We've put in our two Knuts. Let someone else deal with this problem."

"You started this, Snape. You had better finish it," Draco replied, pulling his hand away from her. "You, simply you."

"The silly aspiration of a seventeen year old girl, hoping to get her father's attention was simply a ruse. We were careless. We nearly got each other killed on more than one occasion. I will not put my life, or my friends' lives, in jeopardy again! Now, if you'll kindly leave me alone!"

"They'll be here tomorrow to discuss this matter further. I am sure you will pass the message along to McCoy and Higgs," Draco stated.

Lenna left Draco standing in the corridor alone and wandered down the dusty stairs, to the Entrance Hall, and slipped off into the dungeons without so much as a peep from a portrait. Concern furrowed through her face as she stopped half way down the stairs and listened closely. There was no sound from a single portrait, and she had seen them, each looking at her as she walked through the halls, but not a single word. They used to stop and talk to her, they used to whisper as she passed when they found out what she was, but there was never complete silence. She had thought maybe it was her appearance, the limp dry hair, the darkened eyes, the sallow, pale skin that clung to her bones and nothing else; but some how she felt there was something else hidden there.

"I'm too old for this shit!" Lenna snapped and continued down the stairs.

Stopping outside her old bedroom, she cursed some more and slid down the dirty cold concrete wall and sat on the floor. Lenna hardly cared that she was sitting in a pile of year old dust or that the whole school seemed a mess. She was more concerned about this meeting she was going to be forced to have with Ginny and Hermione. It was one thing to tell her she had to speak with them, that didn't bother her; what did was what they were going to discuss. She was a born necromancer; the others were learned necromancers who took pride in what they were, while she hid from it. They enjoyed what they learned, and she feared it. Lenna feared it more than anything else life could throw at her. Fear, her boggart had been her mother; not because she feared her mother but because she feared what her mother was: another necromancer, an evil necromancer; a necromancer that wanted to use her as a pawn in some strange ploy.

'Stop, stop this at once!' she screamed at herself. 'I can't keep remembering her. She's dead, I burned her body and spread her ashes across a field of lavender!'

Her mind returned to what she had to do tomorrow. She had to convince her friends that this was wrong. They had been wrong to delve into the Dark Arts while in school. She had been wrong teaching them, she should have just kept it to herself instead of wanting someone else to share it with. They needed to know the consequences of what they had done. How could they not have seen the danger they were in? Were they completely so entwined with their own lives that they didn't care about anything else?

'You know, seeing you sitting here like that brings back such memories.' Lenna looked up from the floor and found her self staring back into the same brown eyes.

"You're dead!" Lenna hissed, her voice leaked of shock. "I saw you die! I saw them kill you!"

'You know, he never wanted you in the first place,' the apparation of her mother had said as she followed her daughter run into her room and slam the door behind her, spelling it locked. 'He had hoped I would miscarry.'

"You didn't want me anymore than he did! You made that abundantly clear!" Lenna screamed at her mother and cowered in a corner.

'Oh but I did, sweetheart, I did. You were my baby. My firstborn. You were the one to carry on my legacy.'

"Legacy?" Lenna laughed coldly. "I'd rather carry on with nothing than carry on being this! I hate it! I hate you, I bound you to your grave and still you haunt me! I bound your ashes to the field where you could never hurt me again!"

'Oh yes, I planned on you doing that, and I planned to make sure I would be here for you when you needed me. You can never truly be rid of me, Lenna. My blood flows through your veins.'

"Blood doesn't determine what I'll become."

'Really? I was a Necromancer, and so are you.'

"I'm not evil!"

'Not yet you aren't,' the ghost of her mother said coolly, as if she had said nothing out of the normal. 'You are a born Necromancer. Necromancy is a form of Dark Magic, Lenna. You do the math. It is only a matter of time before you and your friends follow in Lord Voldemort's footsteps.'

"I'd rather die than follow him."

'That could be arranged.'

The apparation of her mother faded, leaving her cowering in the corner. Her hands tightly gripping the cloth of her robes, and her knuckles were turning white. She could faintly hear the banging of someone's fists on her door, but none of it mattered. Her mother was right. She was evil. She was born evil, and there was nothing she could do about it. But her old Headmaster's words had always held a special place in her mind. 'It is the choices we make that determines who we will become later.' If only she could truly believe those words after seeing her mother's ghost.

She felt, rather than saw, the wards on her door shudder and give way. Her eyes remained on the floor in front of her; she didn't want to know who was coming through that door. Knowing her mother, she had done something to ensure that Lenna lost her mind completely. Whoever had come through that door was lost in the dark of her room, and they weren't even thinking to turn the light on, maybe they didn't think she was there; maybe they didn't want her to know where they were. Whatever the reason, she was completely petrified. Every sound in her room sounded like she was under water, and the words and sounds were muffled.

"Stupefy!" she yelled as soon as she saw the figure, but the spell was reflected and hit the wall. She screamed and buried her head in her arms. She felt two sets of arms wrap around her, holding her close to whoever was there. Using her other senses, Lenna tried to figure out who was holding her. She pressed her head into the shoulders of the person to her left, they smelt faintly of death, rotting corpses, and burning flesh. She knew that smell, the smell underneath the disgusting smell of rot. "Jonathan," she cried and turned to the person on her right. Breathing in his smell, she knew within moments who it was. "Terence!"

"Move her to the bed." She heard a third person more clearly this time, though she still couldn't make out the voice or figure.

"No, no. Stay here," she whispered, holding onto Terence as if he would disappear at a moments notice.

"There's no way she would have known," Terence said to Jonathan, who looked over at the third party. "What do we do with her now, Professor?"

"Dad?" Lenna said, horrified that she had attacked her own father.

The tears fell freely now as she stifled a sob. How could she have attacked her father? Was she that alike with her mother that she would simply attack him? 'You're not like her!' her mind screamed, as if a reasonable tone would go unheeded. 'You were protecting yourself. He expected it from you. He's not mad!' She shook her head and tried to clear the thoughts that were running ramped. Her emotions were running away with her and there was nothing she could do to stop them.

"Move her to the bed," Severus repeated again and lit the candles in her room.

The soft glow radiated from several points in the room. Four candles sat on the wardrobe, two on the desk, one on either side of the bed, and a few candelabras were on the wall, illuminating the dark room. Lenna gasped at the sudden light, but was thankful for it all the same. She could make out her four-posted bed to the left of her, which still looked the same as the last time she was there. Light blue linens under a large navy blue quilt, with Irish designs through out it. She remembered her grandmother making the quilt, and how much she loved running her hands over the designs of the Celtic cross or the Celtic knotwork. The quilt had been a gift after she finished school and began her new job; her grandmother had made it for her, and left it with her father just before she died.

Moving reluctantly, Lenna sat on her bed still being held by both her friends while her father knelt in front of her. She stared blankly into his face, as if trying to put it all to memory. Sitting there, she felt herself trembling uncontrollably.

"Breath," Terence whispered.

"What's wrong with me?" Lenna blinked, her hands resting on her lap.

"First, tell us what happened," Severus ordered her, watching her as if he was watching a disobedient child.

"Did you want Aleena to miscarry when she was pregnant?" The question was unexpected for both Lenna and Severus, but the shock didn't show on his face.

"Yes," he replied honestly and watched the horror wash over his daughter's face.

"Why? How could you?" she cried, anger swelling inside of her. Her fingers curled around the fabric of her skirt into tight fists, her wand forgotten in the corner of her room.

Severus released a heavy sigh and stood up, before walking away from her. He had expected one day that she might wonder why he wasn't involved in her raising before she was brought to him a near zombie; but he never expected her to ask him if he never wanted the pregnancy. How she had found out didn't matter, what mattered was that she knew now.

"When we married, she was two months pregnant and had a secret no one knew about." Severus turned back to Lenna. "The Dark Lord was still gaining power, and though both she and I were Death Eaters at the time, I was also a spy," he explained. "After our marriage she told me her secret. She was a born Necromancer. Her family had been cursed back in the 1500's and the firstborn daughter always possessed such a power."

"I know this already, damn it! Just tell me why!" Lenna yelled, not putting two and two together.

"Had I known what she was, I would never have married her in the first place. I would never have been with her. It was bad enough pretending to be a killer, but I was being forced to be a father. I told her I had hoped she lost her child so that the child would never grow up in an era when the Dark Lord was around. She left me, and said she would carry the child to full term and pray it was girl so she could use her against me. So she could turn her against me for being such a fool."

"You wanted me dead!"

"Lenna, relax," Jonathan said, holding her tightly against him while she fought against him.

"Yes, I wanted you dead." He wasn't helping matters, but she had to know the truth. "I wanted nothing to do with Aleena or her pregnancy. I hated her for what she was doing. You were a pawn in her grand scheme of things." He seethed, "You were her little zombie until she dropped you off here five years later."

"I can't believe this! Neither of you wanted me."

"Oh she wanted you. She wanted you to learn to hate me, wanted you to cause me trouble. What she didn't count on was the there was a castle full of people, my self included, that would not see her use you," he said, a deadly calm set over his body and voice.

"You're a liar!" She felt cold rage building, threatening to boil over.

Terence released Lenna and watched as Jonathan followed his lead as if there had been a telepathic message sent between the two. They watched as she lunged towards Severus, only to be stopped by a set of arms wrapping around her waist, resting on bare skin.

"LET GO OF ME!" she screamed and felt Terence's fingers trace a line over her hidden tattoo. "No!" She fought against his arms.

"I won't lose you again." He whispered to her, "I won't let you hurt him, yourself, or anyone else, Lenna."

Terence allowed a small amount of magic to flow through the tattoos and felt the warmth of it tingling against it. He let her fight against his arms, let her know he wasn't going to let her go without a fight. He would rather her be angry with him than do something she would regret. When she didn't relent, he filled the tattoo with everything he had for her: his love, his want, his need of her, simply her; not what she was, not the power she held, just her. He loved her for her; he had always loved her. He needed her; need contact with her. She avoided him for three years, and now he was allowed to hold her again, and he filled her with that feeling.

He felt her body resist against the emotions, he felt her struggle to hold onto her rage, but he felt when she gave up. Her body went limp against his, and he held her against him, waiting for her to comment, waiting for her to say something, anything, even if it was to scream at him. He took in the confused look on Severus' face and realized his old Professor had never been told of the spell the two had used when they were young and foolish.

"What the hell did you do to her?" Severus snapped, moving closer to the two, his eyes resting on the figure of his daughter unmoving in her friend's arms.

Terence said nothing for the longest time, relishing in the moment of being able to help her again. He knew it wouldn't last, that she would run from him again, and that, because of what he had done, she would avoid him.

"If you've hurt her, so help me..." Severus began.

"She's not hurting. I wouldn't hurt her for any reason, even if I were telling the truth," Terence replied, as if reprimanding his old Head of House. He moved Lenna to the bed and lay down beside her, still holding her in his arms. "We share a bond, not simply the fact that we dated when we were younger. She was mine then, and I hers. We were foolishly in love," he explained, his hand resting over her still hidden tattoo. "We had found a spell, presumably the same one the Dark Lord used for the Dark Marks. She and I share a tattoo, hidden from sight, only we knew where they are. Her's" --he moved her skirt enough to show the tattoo-- "is here. Mine, is on my neck. We can feel everything each other feels. I knew she was furious at what you said, and I let her go to attack you, because I knew if I didn't, I would never be given a moment to get close enough to the tattoo to use it against her."

"Are you incredibly stupid? Did you even think about what repercussions this might have on your lives?" Severus seethed. "What were you two thinking? Studying that deep into the Dark Arts. I allowed you to study only what you needed to keep her happy, and you do this? I cannot believe this, of all the idiotic things to do!"

Lenna stirred slightly and rested her hand on top of Terence's, before she returned to her sleep without so much as a word. Terence turned his attention to the gold band on her finger. Her wedding band, one that he wished had been from him. Pain filled his eyes as he turned back to look at Severus. He hissed and pulled his hand away from Lenna, looking down at the first-degree burn on his knuckles. Confused, he held her hand in his and found the golden band glowing orange and changing shade to red.

"They've set the pyre! Get that ring off her!" Jonathan yelled at Terence, who immediately did what he was told.

Second-degree burns graced her fingers; blisters had already begun to form, turning the skin a shade of purple. She whimpered, "Daniel," and was out of it again. Severus had already gone to retrieve a burn salve, while Terence held her in his arms. Even in her subconscious mind, she knew that Daniel was gone; she knew that he had died and been burned like all the other toxin victims.