Accidents of Circumstance

Chapter 15: Blood and Fire

"She's missing her heart," Ginny whispered, stroking Draco's face. He was lying in her lap, and they were in an abandoned classroom somewhere in the middle of Ravenclaw's section of the castle. "That's why she hurts so much."

"How can we give it back to her?"

"I have the locket," Ginny said after a moment. "The one she coughed up. If the lighter was her father's, then the locket must be her mother's."

Draco blinked, trying to remember what it looked like. "It was heart shaped, wasn't it?"

"Yes, with little etched runes in it."

Draco shifted slightly to look up at Ginny's face. Her gaze didn't seem to be set on anything in particular. It was probably another of her visions. They were coming with increased frequency, but she was getting better at hiding it. Her classmates merely thought she was daydreaming during class. "What is it?"

"I'd better give her the black crystal, too. She'll need it later."

"For what?"

"What's the opposite of creation?" Ginny asked instead, her voice sounding distant.

"Ginny, stop it. This isn't funny."

"There is need for death and destruction. The time is coming closer...."

Draco sat up abruptly and seized her shoulders. Ginny blinked and looked at Draco's frightened face. "What? What did I say?"

"Death and destruction. That bad feeling I got, it just got worse."

Ginny leaned forward and held him tightly. "Draco, we'll be okay."

"Don't predict anyone's death, okay? Just... don't tell me if you do."

Ginny closed her eyes and didn't mention the silvery blonde hair lying unmoving on stone in her vision. "All right. I promise. I... I'll need to tell someone about this. It's getting harder to block it out. I'll need training."

"Regina should know people. It might get her mind off of it."

"Okay. I'll give her the locket and crystal, and ask her." Ginny impulsively kissed Draco's temple. "It'll be all right, you'll see."

***

Ginny used the time during Alternative Magic to give Regina the three items she had coughed up the night she had woken from her coma. "I'd been saving these for you, for when you'd need them," she said, words falling over themselves. Regina was staring at her, and she hated being stared at so intently. It invariably made her think of the summer she had spent at St. Mungo's after first year.

"I'd wondered if it was all a dream."

"There is a need for death and destruction," Ginny said impulsively. "I saw something, and it's time you had your heart back."

Regina's hands went very still over the locket and black egg. "What do you mean by that?" she asked quietly.

"I..." Ginny clamped her mouth shut as she tried to think of a way to explain her situation without sounding stupid. She couldn't think of one. "I'm seeing things, the future, the past, ghosts of all kinds. And I don't know how to stop it."

"You're a seventh daughter," Regina said after a moment.

"Of a seventh daughter," Ginny added.

Regina blinked. "A seventh of seventh." She shook her head slightly. "Selphie told me I'd meet one someday."

"Who?"

"A close friend of mine. She gets visions, too. She said I'd meet a seventh of seventh, and that I'd know what to do once I found her."

"So what do you do?"

Regina snorted. "Damned if I know." Regina leaned back in her chair and tucked the items into one of her pockets. "There is a little poem she wrote into my yearbook, on the forty-ninth page. A seventh son is a seventh son/ and the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter/ signals the end of the sun./ But at the end of the blistered night/ and its senseless slaughter/ lies the dawn of coming light."

"What does that mean?"

"She never told me, just that seven is very important when it comes around."

Ginny sat very still, feeling her hearing start to shift. "It's starting..."

Regina's words were drowned out by others. If there's no other way to stop it, then it's got to be me. There's no one else I can trust to do this.

"Ginny!"

Ginny looked up, apologetic. "Sometimes it's hard to avoid it."

Regina sighed, and placed her chin in the palm of her hand. "It will take some training, and I don't think Professor Trelawney is up to it, unfortunately. I've heard that she's made two or three true prophecies in all her life. In this day and age, it's hard to get a new Seer born."

"But what can I do, then?"

"I don't have that gift, so I couldn't tell you. But you need to find a way to at least block it out for now, until I can find someone who can."

"What about your friend?"

"She's occupied at the moment..." Regina heaved a sigh. "I'll see who I can find. You need training before it takes over all of you."

Voldemort's foot over her chest, holding her in place as she was coughing blood. He twisted his boot before lifting it off.

Ginny found herself standing up, all eyes on her. The students couldn't hear her, she knew, but the vision had been too vivid. "He kills you."

"Who?"

"You Know Who."

"Oh, don't be silly."

"No, I saw it!"

"You saw him kill me?"

"Well, you're coughing up blood, and he's standing on top of you. Literally!"

"Oh. There's a little wiggle room in that, you know."

"How can you be so calm?" Ginny asked, sinking down into the chair.

"I've been having a series of incredibly bad days lately," Regina said quietly. "What's one more somewhere down the line?"

Ginny kept her mouth shut; Draco wasn't supposed to have seen her outburst the day before. "I still don't understand."

"Growing up can be a bitch and a half, Ginny. You've got enough problems right now. Don't worry about me."

"But..."

"No, really. You focus on keeping a hold on those visions. The last thing you want is for it to be widely known. There's always stories of a Seer being kept imprisoned so that visions will come continuously. That's the last thing you want."

Ginny sighed. "Does that really happen? It sounds like a bad romance novel."

Regina grinned. "Sure. But that doesn't make it not true. It's one of those stories that goes around the Seer Set."

"There's a name for it?"

"Eh, that's what Selphie and I call it. It's just... There aren't that many true Seers in the world, and all of the true ones know each other. They can feel it, they somehow call each other, can help train wild magic, can help train other Seers."

"Selphie's your Seer friend?"

"Yup. I'll give her a call, see who she recommends around here. Hopefully you'll meet her soon." Regina leaned back in her chair. "She likes teaching, so you don't have to worry."

"I'm not worried," Ginny said. She felt a little calmer already.

Hello, my dear. I've been waiting for you a long time. It isn't every day a seventh daughter of a seventh daughter comes my way. Come, I have much to teach you...

"You'll be all right, Ginny. I'll give Selphie a call as soon as class is over. I should call her anyway, just to catch up."

"You take care," Ginny whispered. "So many people rely on you."

Regina was still as Ginny crossed the threshold of the silencing charm, and looked at the locket squeezed tight in her fist. Look, Mom, I bought this for you, for Mother's Day. Her mother had been delighted, of course. All mothers would have been. Here is my heart, Mom. I'm giving it to you.

In the Dreamscape, her mother had said she needed to find her way. My heart will point you true. She shut her eyes as the children filed out of the room silently.

My heart will point you true.

***

Draco looked at the parchment in front of him. The other Slytherins had looked at his sour face and rightly guessed that he had no intentions of talking to anyone during the free period Regina had set up. He had a dream the night before, when he had returned to the dungeons after spending time with Ginny. It still haunted him.

He was learning to fly a broom at Malfoy Manor, and his father was there. He was five, perhaps, short and chubby and adoring his father with all the ardor of a small child. His father was impossibly tall, his hair almost as white as the clouds. His mother was standing in the background, framed by a doorway's arch. Her face was carefully blank as she watched them, and she didn't say anything when Draco hit the ground face-first.

Then Draco was sitting at a short table in the middle of a slightly overgrown yard, rather uncomfortably fidgeting. Ginny was there, sitting across from him with a chipped pink tea set, looking as though she were five years old, too. Her cheeks were round and pinked by the sun, and she was grinning at him. "Drink your tea before it gets cold!" She was missing a front tooth, and something in Draco seemed to melt.

Draco was a doll, and Ginny tipped the teacup toward his painted mouth. It was empty, and there was a large crack across the bottom. A red haired woman appeared in the doorway of the house to the side of the yard. "Ginny dear, it's time to come in. Grandma just arrived."

Ginny picked up Draco gingerly and brought him into the house. It looked dilapidated, and it was stuffed full of knickknacks, food and Weasleys. "Gramma!"

"My favorite granddaughter!" the older woman cried, sweeping the girl and her doll into a massive hug. She was a mountain of flesh, wide and full of rolls, but not quite hideously so. Draco wondered why he wasn't as disgusted as he should have been, when his parents had told him that fat people were to be avoided as though it were a disease.

Ginny was showing off Draco, her new doll, and telling her grandmother about the tea party she was having in the backyard with the cups her mother had found in the attic. "Ah, I gave those to your mother when she was your age." When no one was listening, the grandmother bent down to Ginny and Draco, whispering "My seventh of seventh, where's your third eye?"

Ginny pointed to the center of Draco's head. "Right here."

"Wonderful!" Ginny's grandmother crowed. "You take care of it, and it'll treat you well, dear. Now, let's go see if your mother's batch of cookies is ready yet. She'll let you have one if you're good."

"I'm always good," Ginny said solemnly. She held up Draco. "I'm taking good care of him, aren't I?"

"The best," the older woman said, patting Ginny's head. "Let's have our cookies with tea outside, shall we?"

And then Draco was in his bedroom at the Manor, sitting in a chair and staring outside to where his mother's garden had been the year before. She had grown bored with it, and wanted it moved to the other side of the Manor. Gardeners were hard at work. "But then where will the roses be?" Ginny asked, standing at his elbow.

Draco turned to face her, not surprised in the slightest. "They'll be visible from the other side of the house."

Ginny wrinkled her nose. "This isn't a house. It's too big for that."

"I'll take care of you, Ginny." Draco didn't know what possessed him to say such a thing.

She grinned, and he didn't care what his impulse had been about. He suddenly wanted to wax poetic about suns emerging from behind clouds, about the warmth inherent in a summer's midafternoon. Instead, he held her hand and kissed the back of it.

"We'll take care of each other," she corrected softly. "We're the only ones that understand. We have to take care of each other."

And then he had woken, sweat dampening some tendrils of hair. Draco caught Ginny's eyes when she returned to her seat. Tonight, he mouthed, and she gave a slight nod. They would meet again and talk that night.

***

Hermione had taken the opportunity to go through her current theories with Ron and Harry in the corner of the Alternative Magic classroom. After they had returned to the Gryffindor common room, the boys had gone to bed. She had stayed awake for another two hours, cross-referencing any mentions of mermaid magic. It had been in Regina's copy of Dark Realms of the Universe that Hermione had found the definitive mention of mermaids and the kind of magic they could produce.

Merfolk: Clans of the Seas

....Finding a true mermaid may prove difficult. The clans of the Gera do not frequent areas of human habitation. It is often the highest echelon that may come in contact, and even then it will be in human guise, to help hone their magical skills. Often it will be the Queen of a group of clans, or at least those with royal standing. It is only by special permission that one of the Gera can associate with those not of the clans....

Tales persist of the True Merfolk in warm climates, often where there is little chance of their being seen. The four known Gera clans are the Herth, Tinara, Jelisan and Lintar. Of these four, it is generally the Jelisan Queen that is known to associate with humans, to better understand how to lead her people away from the threat of humans. It is by some of the interactions that tales had spread of their magical ability, some of which is related to that of Faerie or Tempar....

Further study (Hartwick; Gratlor, Taylor and Brodowski; Matthew, Monday and York) seems to coincide with these theories, and offer more detail:

Much of the merfolk magical ability has been described as cobbled together from various other sources. The creation mythology and basic theology of the clans is often cited as the basis for color coordination, direction coordination and intonation of spells. As a complete collection of the Gera mythology could not be collected, this cannot be verified. In any event, spell casting is often the province of the selected few. Spell work is often difficult to learn, and may take years of careful study even by the most ardent of merfolk. The commoners most certainly do not possess any spell work skill, it being the product of idle time.

In the margin, Regina had taken a red ballpoint pen and written "BULLSHIT!!!!" in a childish scrawl. A different handwriting, resembling copperplate, wrote in blue "You're lucky Mom gave you this book!"

The following pages gave various examples of purported merfolk writing, as well as a phonetic transliteration of various phrases. After sounding it out in the dark of the common room, Hermione was convinced that the spells Regina had taught them were merfolk in origin. The words were too odd and guttural to be related to languages Hermione had heard, and the runes they had learned didn't resemble the ones she had learned in her Ancient Runes classes. Coupled with the fact that the Copy Regina had claimed the ceremonial knife was for mermaid magic, it seemed to cement the theory.

Ron of course had been amazed at what she could remember of the book after reading it just once. Harry didn't seem surprised anymore. He just asked if there was anything that they could do to confirm it, if that was even necessary.

They still hadn't decided when class ended.

***

"You know, if you wanted to talk about bad dreams, Claire is better at that," Selphie said into the phone, amused. "Although, I really don't think you want to scare her with this."

"It was the Dreamscape ritual."

"I know, Gina. I taught it to you." Selphie seemed calm in the face of Regina's wavering voice. Then again, Selphine Trianne Desiree Versant of the Jelisan clan was always calm. It had been bred into her very bones.

"I'm holding the black phoenix egg in my hand."

"It's very delicate, you should be careful with it."

"I'm not about to smash it into my desk, so don't worry about that," Regina said with a sigh. "I'm worried about the implications of this."

"What do you mean?" Now Selphie sounded flustered. "You're holding a remnant of a fairy tale because you created it in a different plane. It's a tool you know you'll need. These are serious times, and you need something that dangerous."

"Do I really, though? I wonder if I can get away without using it. You know, avoid blowing up a chunk of this castle."

Selphie laughed, a rich warm sound over the phone. Regina felt herself calming down immediately. "Since when did you avoid explosions? Remember the fireworks we set in Brunner's office fifth year?"

Regina covered her eyes as she laughed. "Oh my god, I forgot about those. The whole school almost burned down. We were terrible."

"Oh, we were worse at the reunion." Selphie pulled away from the phone slightly. "Jason! It's Reggie!"

Regina smiled at the nickname. Selphie hadn't called her that in a long time, not since fourth year of Briarwood. "Is he back from the tundra already?"

"What can I say? I married a genius."

Regina could hear Jason in the background call out "Tell her I said hi!"

"Tell him I said hi back, and hope we'll get together for dinner soon."

"Of course we will, sooner than you think. Of course, you realize you're going to have to warn Albus Dumbledore. I don't know if it'll ruin your reputation." Selphie laughed again.

They had the awful habit of behaving like spoiled teenagers whenever they met. It didn't matter that Regina was thirty-six and Selphie was forty, they always laughed and giggled like teenagers, sometimes plotting some kind of prank to pull on their other friends. Jason had long since become used to it, but it often came as a shock to total strangers.

"Reputation? I'm the Big Bad Vile One, of course."

Selphie snorted. "And I'm born with hooves."

"I don't know... what did your mom tell you?"

"Silly girl... fins are not hooves."

Regina laughed. "Actually, aside from that worrying me... I have a student. A seventh of seventh. She's starting to fall under the weight of visions."

Selphie sighed. "I know, I've seen it in my own dreams. She's even projecting them, though she doesn't know it yet. I've got my own monsters to train, plus the Harjet twins."

"Oh, tell me you didn't take them on!"

"What could I do? Mom wasn't going to."

Regina sighed. "Is Momma free?"

"I'll ask. I suspect she already knows. But it's always good to ask. She'd spit fire and draw blood if you didn't."

"Will you ask or will I?"

"Oh, I will. I need to consult about the twins in any case. You just remember the poem, keep it like a wall in your mind. Train it now, you'll need it later."

"You know.... It's really creepy the way you do that."

Regina could hear the smile in Selphie's voice. "I know. Keeps the kids in line."

Regina took a deep breath before speaking. "I've been thinking about starting again."

"I know. You should. It's a good time to start."

"You've been smoking those crystals of yours, haven't you?"

Selphie snorted. "Of course not. Not since the incident with the rose quartz."

Regina laughed, and put her feet up on her desk, settling into her chair. "I asked for a meeting with Albus before I called you. He thinks it's about the Blood Wards I'd set."

"Mm... go easy on the warding. You're stretched too thin."

"I'm already broken, what's another stress fracture?" Regina asked flippantly.

"I mean it, Gina. Give yourself another day or so to heal before casting a second round of spells. You need some time to rest. Absorb the spirit of your parents."

Regina nearly choked on her laughter. "You've been spending way too much time with Jess lately if you're saying stuff like that."

Selphie laughed. "Well, with you staying in Scotland, it's only the three of us Four Musketeers and Liane. It's just not the same without you."

"I'll be back when the term is over."

Selphie caught the Britishism that had crept into Regina's language without her realizing it. "We'll see," she said thoughtfully. "I'll tell the kids you send your love."

"You do that. I'm a little tired, I think I'll take a nap before my meeting."

"I'll wake you if you want," Selphie offered. "An hour's rest should do you good."

"As long as it won't take away from your own prep time."

"I'll consider it practice. A little long-distance action is good to stretch my limits."

"You were last at a thousand miles, weren't you?"

"Eight hundred sixty-seven, give or take. I'll see what I can do."

"You could always leapfrog it."

"I hate doing that. It leaves me with a headache, and I've got the twins to think about."

Regina laughed. "Okay. I'll set my alarm clock, just in case."

Selphie laughed as well. "I'll talk to you sooner than you think."

"I hate it when you do that," Regina muttered as Selphie hung up the phone. "Show off."

Already feeling lighter in spirit, Regina left the classroom and headed for her room.

***

I will show you the blood of the fire

The water of the season of the tree

The rest within the center storm

That's unlike other places to be.

I will carry you in wings of lace

And wrap you tight as webbing

Before granting you your wishes

As my magic strength is ebbing.

If you carry the blood of the fire

Unto the end of the seventh round

Till the seventh of seventh is come,

Verily, salvation is then found.

Harry cocked an eyebrow at Hermione. "I don't see how this has anything to do with the mermaid magic thing."

Ron took the book from Hermione and pursed his lips. "Well, there's the seventh of seventh business, and the blood being repeated. Blood and fire probably mean a lot to mermaids, since they can get it easily."

"Nothing is going to be clear, Harry, since we're working with myth even to wizards. No one's really seen a mermaid in over a hundred years."

"But you think they exist."

"For the second Regina to think so? Yes."

"I remember Mum saying something to Ginny when we were little, that she shouldn't swim too far in the ocean, or else the mermaids would take her."

Hermione nibbled on her lower lip. "Is it common to say something like that? Or did she just say it to keep Ginny in line?"

"I know it happened whenever our grandmother came to visit. Grandma would always say that Ginny was going to meet mermaids. But they always were whispering and giggling together. Grandma always said Gin was her favorite granddaughter." Ron shrugged. "I never heard anything else about mermaids before. No one really believes they exist, or else someone would've found them by now."

"But if they have glamour and shape shifting ability, they could walk around just like we do, and we'd never know it," Harry reasoned. He looked over Ron's shoulder at the poem and pointed at the storm line. "What was this supposed to be about?"

Hermione shook her head. "It's an old prophecy, but I haven't been able to find out if it had come true yet. It's so old..." Hermione checked her notes, in which she had cross-referenced the poem to three others that were similar. "This version is from fifteen thirty-six."

"Do the books say anything else about it?"

Hermione pulled out a slim volume she had taken from Regina's room when she had been missing. "This one does, though there's no record of its ever having been written."

"What is that?" Harry asked, sounding a little nervous. It had that strange glyph on the cover, one that looked like the Neo-Pictish symbol for soul, but wasn't. He remembered seeing Regina reading it a few times when he had come into the room for tutoring, but she had never consulted it while teaching him.

"I needed something new to read, and I saw this when we were there, once. I borrowed it, and it's the most amazing book..." Hermione put it down flat on the desk. The pages looked handmade, with the writing appearing to be very neat handwriting. "Look at the craftsmanship of it!" she said breathlessly. "And even better..." Hermione flipped the pages until about two thirds of the way through the book. Here was an enchanted illustration that shifted and moved as they looked at it. "It's a defense spell. It looks like part of the basis for Regina's Circle of One spell, you see the circles?"

Harry watched the circles appear, and various runes appear. Yes, it did look similar, but there were changes enough from the original that he wouldn't have recognized it. "So you think this is a manual of mermaid magic?"

"Maybe not a complete manual... it is in English, after all, and none of the true merfolk would ever teach a human. But someone knew enough about it to write it down. And here..." Hermione took the book back and flipped through a few more pages until she found the part she was looking for. "Right here. Read this."

We speak in silvered tongues and say

The visions come to us unwanted

Though we see and say, we can't turn tides

And so we remain all haunted.

But here in darkness of empty skies

We grin our Reaper's smiles

Waiting for our seventh daughters

To ease silver with her guiles.

When Demons of the Morning come

She shields the Heir from death

She helps shatter the heart of stone

And wakes him to spring breath.

She Sees with clarity twice foretold

And the Serpent shall not rise

Past his second life unnatural

When her vision leaves her eyes.

The Silver Son will scour the walls

Leave Father and Mother bereft

No learning to prevent the leaving

As his heart's already left.

Silver Son and Golden Daughter

Shall in twain protect the Heir

From Angels of the Morning risen

To break apart the Reven stare.

Hermione took the book away after reading the line about the "Reven stare." She looked immensely proud of herself. "It goes on, but this is the part we care about. There's something about a seventh daughter in conjunction with the Reven. And we know that Regina is the last of the Reven."

"We do?" Ron asked, looking confused. The only seventh daughter he knew of was his younger sister Ginny. And what did she have to do with all of this?

"Yes. It's right here, in the book." Hermione flipped to the beginning, when there were various family trees. One was labeled Reven, and the very last name in it was Regina's. "She's the last of the Reven, and she's involved in this. She's probably the Golden Daughter. I mean, she's teaching Harry how to protect himself. Voldemort must be the Serpent, and Harry must be the Heir in the prophecy."

Harry squirmed as both their gazes turned to him. "Well then, who's the Silver Son?"

"Dumbledore? His beard is silvery."

Hermione and Harry both turned to Ron, and they all began to laugh. "We need to talk to Regina about this, you know."

"Tonight, then, after my tutoring session," Harry said. It was decided.

***