The Watchtower

They worked together; the lot of them did, to uncover some of the strangest, and perhaps the most historical locations in the known wizarding world. They had begun as a group of three, bound together only by their love for unusual, yet highly believable places. Their group grew from three. It had quite a few members when the last days of their school years ended and they were among the few who had survived the last war against Voldemort. Now, they are recognized as a group of talented and bright witches and wizards who have uncovered numerous historical locations around the world.

They work individually to uncover strange and mythical places in locations in quite random areas of the world. Sometimes, it just so happens that they might be looking for, is right before their very eyes, and they had never thought to look. That is the case with Parvati Patil's latest assignment: locating the Watchtower of the Vicious Sorceress.

*****

She hung around the Leaky Cauldron for three straight days, drinking the golden ale placed before her as she flipped casually through the text that mysteriously been placed upon her desk. It was an interesting read the first time through, telling a tale of unseen horrors; of a witch who had been ostracized from the wizarding community three hundred or so years ago - around the time of the Salem Witch Trials.

Parvati hadn't believed in the tale at first, but something about the story, something that held a grasp on her mind, kept her from denying that there may very well be a place somewhere in the world that this witch used as her domain. Where her dark rituals were preformed, where she met for nightly rendezvous' with local merchant boys. Somehow, she knew she just had to hold up the standards they had set while in school and locate this place, wherever it may be.

The only problem was that the book she held was a journal written by the witch who gave no name, nor reference of where she dwelled. It was oddly thrilling, yet frustrating to think that every time she thought she was growing nearer to the end of her journey, she was only ending up in a dead end, right back where she started. Which is how she came to be sitting in the Leaky Cauldron, drinking another glass of butter beer with the book open in front of her.

Closing the book roughly, Parvati placed her head in her hands, and idly watched the candlewick in front of her burn, spilling white-hot wax down the side. The answer had to be somewhere, didn't it? She had begun to believe that it was a hopeless cause, finding this tower belonging to a witch with no name, who had been stricken from all wizarding text. Yet, somehow some one had this journal. Where could a three hundred year old journal come from when according to history books, this woman didn't exist?

As she watched the candle burn, a thought flickered through her mind. If this woman was ostracized, then there had to be a record of her trial somewhere in the Ministry of Magic. It only meant at least another week's worth of work in a dusty, dank dungeon-like room, reading over rather boring scrolls of just as boring trial records.

Standing up, Parvati dropped a couple of galleons onto the table to pay for her three days worth of butter beer and then apparated to the Ministry. She checked in as per usual and made her way through the halls to the elevator that took her down several floors to where she knew she would have to walk through corridor after corridor, door after door, to get to the stacks of scrolls. It was a long walk, but if it proved useful, Parvati had no problem with it. She had often used the Archives as a way to solve a problem with the cases she was working. Now she just hoped that she was able to find some information about this witch, even if it was just a name.

Stepping through a large set of oak doors, Parvati looked around the brightly lit room and nodded to the woman seated behind the desk. She flashed the small ID card she had and slipped through the large stacks of brown boxes. She had thought that they Ministry would have a better, more efficient way of cataloguing the records, but it turned out that the preservation charms used on some of the older records burned the files when summoned rather than flying over to the summoner. It was a nasty side effect; she had been told, of the use of such old magics on the records. Parvati had often wondered why the Ministry didn't just update the charms so that locating a file was a bit easier for a witch or wizard, but soon found it was just as easy to locate a file the Muggle way. She surmised that the reason the archives were organized in such a way was because more Muggle-borns than purebloods tended to work down in the stuffy stacks, though she wasn't sure why.

Parvati quickly located the year 1692 among the other years and began looking for the files on ostracized witches. She assumed that this witch she was looking for was a pureblooded witch and had done something severe enough to have herself exiled from the wizarding world, but not enough to condemn her to death.

She had quickly found several different files of women who had been exiled from the wizarding world to family estates in the area, but none had anything interesting like what she had read in the journal. This woman had been a Dark witch; a woman who had thought that sending the Muggles after less than pure witches and wizards was funny. None of these women had been ostracized for that reason. Parvati continued searching through the files. Some of them were interesting - Amelia Cornwell had been exiled for attempting to use Dark magic against her husband's mistress to make her commit suicide. Catherine LeBlanc had been exiled to her father's estate in Essex for using illegal love potions and poisons on muggles. Persephone Hawthorne was exiled for persuading Council members to execute Timothy Goode for causing her heartache and strife.

Closing yet another file, of yet another heartbroken witch; Parvati picked up another few files and began reading through them as well. Arnold Goode had petitioned against his grandson's exile for illicit potions use and selling to muggles, and asked council members to ignore the Hawthorne girl, as she had always been obsessed with the Goode family, having caused numerous infractions of wizarding law that had gone unreported because the woman was a pureblood. Hammond Grayson had pleaded with the Council to release his daughter from their custody and give her back to him to avoid dishonouring his family with a trial.

This is getting me nowhere! Parvati thought as she closed the files with the disgruntled family members and looked back into the box she had been searching through. She had cleared out most of the files and found them useless, but interesting reads nonetheless. There were only two more files in the bottom of the box, and she hoped that at least one of them would bear the name of the witch she was searching for.

The first file was about Lucinda Sinclair, a half-blooded witch who had been viciously attacked by three unnamed purebloods, but her statement had been thrown out as another form of prejudice against the purebloods. It was later found that Miss Sinclair had been speaking the truth, when three other half-blooded witches had claimed the same story. No further investigation had ever been done.

Parvati looked at the last file with hope, though, she silently resigned that if the file were not the one she was looking for, she would be forced to ask one of the others for help. And she rather didn't like having to ask when she knew she was quite capable of doing things on her own. Plus, Millicent Bulstrode would never let her live it down.

She flipped open the file and read the name: Ariadne Malfoy. A smile crept across her face at the idea of digging a little into the Malfoy family history. Parvati wasn't sure if the information would lead anywhere, but at least the file would hold something of value for sure; at least to use against Draco Malfoy the next time he tried to use something against her.

Ariadne Malfoy had been charged with setting Muggle witch hunters onto Muggle-borns and half bloods as a way of getting rid of the less than pure witches and wizards from wizarding society. Though many of the Muggle-borns and half bloods had escaped the Muggles without being harmed, they had been outraged with the community for letting such a thing happened, and thus rightly charged Ariadne with their attempted murders. But because the Malfoy family had a great deal of influence in wizarding society, and at least three members of the Council were related to the Malfoys in one way or another, Ariadne had been given a sentence of exile as opposed to the wanted death sentence. The young Malfoy was to be sent to the family's estate in Lindisfarne.

Yes! She thought. Finally! A lead! Parvati happily placed all the other files back into the box and returned it to the shelf she had taken it from. She informed the woman at the desk that she was taking the files she'd collected and would return them as soon as she was finished with them.

Walking through the corridors, up through the doors, to the elevator, Parvati kept her mind on the information she'd read. Thrilled that she had finally found a break in her case. It wouldn't take her long now to locate the estate and the tower. She made a stop off at the back issues of the Daily Prophet to see if they had any information about the year 1692.

"Parvati," Orla Quirke said softly, when Parvati approached her desk.

"Orla," Parvati returned. "I need the 1692 back issues again. I'm looking for something a little more specific this time."

"Let me get them for you." Orla replied quietly and wandered off to get what Parvati had requested. She returned shortly after with a stack of dusty old Daily Prophet issues.

Parvati took a seat over at one of the tables and began reading through each on slowly. Again she was finding irrelevant information, but at least she had something a little more specific to look for. She passed over the trials of Persephone Hawthorne, Amelia Cornwell, and Catherine LeBlanc; she had after all read enough about them through their files. Eventually she located the article on Ariadne Malfoy and read it softly to herself. There was a picture of several young women, all of whom looked rather angry. Parvati took them to be the ones that Ariadne tried to have killed.

She placed the article down with the file she had borrowed from the Archives, and returned the others to Orla. "If you could, I'd like the obituaries for Ariadne Malfoy, if that's possible?" Parvati requested, and upon getting a strange look from Orla, continued, "I just need it for the assignment I'm working on."

Complying, Orla went off to locate the obituaries for Ariadne. Parvati waited as patiently as she could, until Orla returned with the single sheet of parchment and handed it to her.

"I'll need to borrow this, and the one article, if you don't mind?"

"Parvati, I can't."

"Please? This is me; I promise I'll have them back by Monday. He'll never know."

"All right... but they have to be in on Monday," Orla said and watched Parvati leave.

Apparating to the estate that had once belonged to Ariadne Malfoy, Parvati looked around cautiously. She knew it was still dangerous for a witch to travel alone, what with the number of Death Eaters still unaccounted for. Many of the witches and wizards who had defied the Dark Lord, and subsequently brought about his end were often tortured by still loyal subjects laying in wait. Parvati had been lucky to miss being harmed; but Padma hadn't. Walden MacNair had tortured Padma to death two years ago. The pain of losing her twin sister was still fresh, but Parvati often threw herself into her work to avoid dealing with the pain.

A thick fog marred her vision as she aimlessly walked towards the outline of a tall building that she could faintly make out. Parvati wasn't sure what she would be facing when she entered the building, but she believed in her abilities as a witch to keep her safe. What she did know was that she could hear the ocean hitting the side of a cliff, and soon found she was catching herself before she fell to her death.

Backing away from the cliff, Parvati turned to find a large stone tower looking out to the ocean. She looked around, hoping to find more of a building, instead of just a single tower, but she found none. Maybe it was the fog that made her sure there was nothing more there; maybe it was a ward that kept her from exploring more. But she chose to check out the tower all the same.

A large wooden door faced towards a large dark forest that she hadn't noticed the first time she looked. Nor had she noticed the ruins that lay next to the tower; ruins of a house, probably the long forgotten estate that the Malfoys had owned. Parvati took the door and found herself looking at a number of large stone stairs leading upwards into the tower. She inwardly cringed as she took each step up.

Before long, Parvati found herself standing on a small stone landing, having at last climbed a little over one hundred stairs. Another large wooden door stood before, with a small brass door handle, and silver snake knocker. She couldn't imagine why someone would need a knocker on this door, but she supposed the Keeper of the Tower wouldn't have been able to hear someone knocking if they were to use a knocker on the other door more than one hundred stairs below.

With an outstretched hand, she opened the door and took a step into the room. She had assumed the room would be small, but she was very mistaken. It was huge. The room's size was probably thanks to an enchantment of some sort. But she wasn't there to figure out why the room was larger when the tower was smaller. She was there to check the place out, then add it to the list of growing tourist attractions that they had uncovered. That was her job.

A large king sized mahogany four-poster bed sat under the large window. Other matching furniture pieces, including a wardrobe, lined the walls. Several silver candelabras were placed on top of the wardrobe, night table, desk, and large cabinet. It was the cabinet that drew Parvati's attention. Inside were objects that could only be classified as truly creepy. A human skull, with a spider crawling out of it, a bloody dagger, three femurs, several chicken bones, and other various dark ritualistic items lay within the glass cupboards of the cabinet.

Turning, Parvati found a pentagram drawn in red paint, or perhaps it was red blood; but she wasn't about to touch it. She knew the dangers of breaking a pentagram - she could release some sort of dangerous demon, or summon the caster of the pentagram to her. Both of which, she would rather not do; at least not without a team of aurors with her.

It was then that she noticed a large portrait upon the wall before her. She assumed the portrait was Ariadne Malfoy, but since there wasn't any name on it, she could only assume. The woman had a long narrow face, with well-defined high cheekbones. She had pale white skin, and cold narrow grey eyes, with straight blond hair that fell around her shoulders. She looked like a female carbon copy of Lucius Malfoy, at least in Parvati's eyes.

The room at the top of the tower might have been cosy, and comfortable, if it weren't so creepy and filled with Dark Arts objects. Parvati looked around the room once more, and then flipped open the files she had on the Malfoy girl. This obviously had been her room, probably from the time she had been exiled. Parvati checked off that the tower was acceptable for tourists. She turned to leave the room; now that her job was complete, she wanted out of the spine-chilling room.

Something sparkly caught her attention, something she hadn't seen upon her first examination of the room. A crystal ball perched upon a hunter green cushion with silver tassels, was positioned just behind a set of teacups. Having spent the majority of her youth fascinated by Divination and fortune-telling, Parvati couldn't help but examine the three hundred year old crystal ball. It looked like any other crystal ball, but when she glanced inside she saw the faintest blur of a woman with blond hair and narrow eyes. It drew her attention until she had it in her hands, and a soft glow filled the room.

It was a strange sensation, this white light that filled the room. A calm peacefully feeling washed over her, as she moved throughout the room; but something, she could tell, was not right. Though the feeling of being in utter blissful peace was something she had longed for, it wasn't natural. It wasn't something she had induced on her own. It wasn't a free willing choice she had made; it was forced upon her, as if having her in that state of mind was just simply easier to make her do whatever someone wanted her to do. But she was alone in the room...wasn't she?

A cold, malicious, intoxicating laugh that came out of nowhere filled the room with the soft words of hate; cruel words of discontent and longing for destruction. Words of death, words of intolerable injustices, words of dark spells, and hateful incantations; words that would lead her into a realm of plight and fear, of darkness and pain; words that had been repeated throughout her school years; ones that the Dark Lord had spoken over and over as the war drew nearer to it's end, and death was sure to come to those that opposed him. These were not her thoughts; these were malevolent, and damning.

It was a petrifying cold thought; knowing something or someone else possessed your mind but yourself. Parvati had only once known with it had felt like to be controlled by someone else. Professor Mad-Eye Moody had shown them what the Imperious Curse had felt like back in her fourth year of school. Yet this was somehow different, it was colder, more evasive, more demanding.

Parvati wasn't sure when the fire started to crackle, or when it was even lit; she didn't remember pulling her wand out and starting one. But somehow, the room grew warmer, and her fingers began to sweat around the crystal orb in her hands. Keeping her grasp on the object was becoming increasingly harder to do. If her fingers continued to sweat, she would drop the ball, and somehow that seemed like a very bad thing to do. Parvati didn't want to drop it; she didn't want to lose that feeling of happiness that it seemed to give.

With sweaty fingers, Parvati tried to move away from the fire, to move anywhere that wouldn't threaten the object at her hands. It wasn't her emotions that had her worried, convinced that dropping it would some how diminish the hold on her. Those thoughts belonged to someone else.

Stumbling over the back of her robes, Parvati flung the crystal ball into the air, and then scrambled to catch it before it hit the ground. However, she had never been the type of girl to be able to catch a ball for any reason, and the orb slipped through her outstretched fingers and rolled into the fire.

She watched the crystal ball turn a black tinge as the flames curled around it. Screaming filled the air, screaming of curses, and words of hate and dismay; words that she hardly understood. And burning, it felt like her flesh was on fire; that her skin was melting from her bones, leaving her naked in the warm air. It was then that she realized she was screaming now too; that the screams where not just curses and vile words of malice; but words of prayer and hope, and words of forgiveness, and pain.

Parvati was curled up in a tight ball, her hands covering her face as she prayed for the pain to subside; for the burning sensation to dissipate; for everything to return back to normal so she could go home and forget about this wretched place of torment and torture. She no longer believed it was safe for tourists to venture into the watchtower of such a vile and vicious sorceress. She would not allow some unsuspecting witch, wizard or child to become subject to such cruelty.

Trembling and whimpering, Parvati slowly realized that the screaming had dispersed and left her to her own means. Her head was clearing, the pain diminishing, and move of her own free will again. She looked into the fire, and when she was sure there was no other remains of the crystal ball, she pulled herself to her feet and moved off to the door.

The room, Parvati noticed as she took one last look around, smelled faintly of burnt flesh. Cringing, she glanced at the picture of Ariadne Malfoy before she closed the door on the room. She was not about to step foot back into the room again. It was pure evil, and left her with the worst memories possible. Her mind felt clouded with images, ones she had never seen before. Horrific things that had happened three hundred years ago; things that had never been seen again since the witch hunt had ended. Padma's death was easier to handle than the thoughts and images than now ran rapidly through her head.

She took each step as quickly as she could, until she was standing out in the fog, the wind, a welcomed feeling after the closeness of the air in the room at the top of the tower. Parvati walked quickly away from the tower, and stood as far away as possible, before flipping open her file once more and checking off that the watchtower was not safe for any reason, and should never be spoken of again. It was then, that she left to leave the file closed on Millicent Bulstrode's desk with no information as to where the tower was located; and she never did return the files to Orla or the Ministry Archives. Instead, she sat up late into the night burning each and ever article there was on Ariadne Malfoy.