Death Beds, Love Songs, and Ancestors

"The Potter Principle," muttered Cynthia as she drew on the thin pipe stem clenched between her teeth. As long as they refused to acknowledge that there are two sides to every story, they would fling the boy around by his wits trying to club Voldemort with own weapon. The answer was so simple, had been in front of them for years. "Five," she whispered, narrowing her eyes on nothing.

Hours had slipped by as she sat before the massive window in the faculty common room, the air filling with smoke gray as the sky beyond the heavy panes. Her fingers were stiff with cold and she flexed them, digging long nails, smooth and clear as glass, into the ancient paisley upholstery. She could see many paths through Hogwarts from this view, and could feel many more, yet none of them offered a way out of this mess, worse still, none of them had even a definable destination.

There was a catch, some trick she'd yet to discover. Some way, some why, somewhere within the castle, within the children, something she'd not put her finger on. Some trick latch, some hidden passage. She was missing something, something everyone before her had missed as well. Not the answer, not even a clue, but maybe...

Potter, potter, she thought, each and every action has an equal and opposite... Cynthia bit hard on her lip and yanked her hat off in the first real movement she'd made in hours. In that flash she realized it wasn't something she was missing, she was sure of it, it was someone.

Wasn't that always how it was? She discarded the thought almost as soon as it had wormed it's way into her narrowed mind. Couldn't be someone, had to be something, someone would be too obvious, someone was Harry Potter. She opened her mouth to say it again, but the words only dusted her lips, "The Potter Principle." The idea of the Highlander - that there is always only one, until the one needed to be replaced.

Cynthia lifted herself out of the chair but did not take her eyes from the window. Far off in the distant east, she could see the specks of students at Quidditch practice, below, deep in the heart of the castle, more students studying, playing, gathering to do whatever it was they did in the early morning before the day had properly begun and was still all promise and opportunity. She fought the urge to press herself to the glass and send out that light, what she had laughing referred to as the Lance of Truth since she's discovered exactly what effect it had on others.

She tapped her fingernails on the window, slowly, rhythmically, the sound finding syncopation with her heartbeat, calming her. She considered those who'd tried to help him, the Potter boy, on whom she cast such suspicion. Clearly the boy was a favorite of Dumbledore - as well he should be, after all, Albus might possibly be Potter's only blood relative outside the ghastly aunt Petunia. Unfortunately, that very tie which bound them also blinded both. Such a power as they both contained should never be welded blindly.

There was Sirius, she had a strong idea of what would become of him, also too close to see the forest for the trees. The Weaselys, she feared for the whole family, too noble to understand they had parked themselves square in the path of a freight train. None of these, but still, even a selfless act was an act, all acts were suspect.

Behind her, up on the landing from which two sweeping staircases lead to the massive window she stood before, a door opened. "Minerva," Cynthia said lightly, more an afterthought than announcement, before the woman had reached even the railing.

"Cynthia," replied the nonplussed witch, descending to the sitting room. "One might think you'd been here all night."

"Oh, I have. I've been thinking," she responded slowly, gaze far away, resting somewhere beyond the hills that marked the end of the magic boundary between Hogwarts Castle and the rest of the world.

"Clearly," McGonagall dropped into the chair that did not hold Cynthia's rumpled hat. She glanced at the small round table where a full cup of tea sat, untouched, next to a very large stack of very expensive parchments. "I imagine if you weren't so deep in thought you might have finished this stack of administrative reviews."

"I don't intend to finish them either, I've got so much more to worry about," came the soft response after moments had passed.

"Won't have a chance to worry if they do away with you for such minor things as failure to complete paperwork." Just the same, Minerva admired the new woman's gutsy fuck you to the noveau-ministery administration that had recently begun to infiltrate the school.

"Well, it's a chance I'll take."

They were quiet for a moment, the older, wiser witch in emerald green and the younger, bolder witch in gossamer silver, posed elegantly against the bleak dawnlight, framed in the window and visible, like pinpoints of starlight, to the students below.

"Who would it be?" Cynthia sighed, now overwhelmed by the thought she'd written off when it had first crossed her mind. It was the only logical path she'd not yet explored. In situations as dire as these, even the most ridiculous path must be examined. Months had whizzed by, passage ways and riddles and the fucking prophecies had lead to one dead end after another.

"Beg pardon?" Minerva asked, bristling slightly that the woman would talk to herself in the presence of another.

Slowly, Cynthia turned from the window and fixed Professor McGonagall with the Beam of Truth. "The trigger, the breaker, the arc, who could it be?"

Minerva felt the blood drain from her face and words pour out of her mouth as if someone had entered her mind with a needle and fishing wire and strung them together without her consent. "She would be a student, an equal, like a twin from a different mother, but the same father. She is an orphan, but her parents live; she is touched by prophecy, but doesn't know; she is scarred but cannot see it; the trigger is under your nose."

"You say 'she', what's the indication?"

"You have been looking for a mirror image, what you should be searching for is a photo negative. Equal but dissimilar, identical, but not the same. If Potter is male, then the breaker you seek is female."

Cynthia returned her gaze to the window.

Minerva jumped from the chair, "Dammit! Can't you just ask a question and receive an answer? Must you use that science-fiction mind trick in polite conversation!" Trembling with a mixture of fury and violation, Minerva carried herself from the room with as much resolution as she could manage. Inside, she was dying to know what had been said. She knew she'd find out later.

Cynthia remained at the window, now her eyes had wandered to the flag fluttering violently atop Gryffindor tower. What she had gathered from Minerva's subconscious was ideology; she'd plugged in a bit of her concern and received direction based on that concern, but either could be wrong. However interesting this new path looked, it was probably as dead an end as everything else she'd stumbled on. Yet there was a spark, there was something new in this equation, something she'd never yet explored - the key to the Potter Principle was a person, and that person was a fifth year girl.

XII

In the tower Cynthia fixed with her wandering gaze, a much more chaotic scene is unfolding. If we were to swoop in, say, on the wings of a spring fly seeking shelter from the storm, we would find two of our heroes in a decidedly non-heroic situation.

The larger boy is six feet tall and carrying his lithe yet solid frame like a weapon. His face is transformed by anger, bring out hard lines that make him appear older. He frequently brushes a flop of red hair back across his forehead so that he can clearly assess the situation and each time his does, he winces as if it hurts. As if he recognizes this nervous tick of his and what it belies. He is clearly in charge of this awkward trespass. The smaller boy is almost a full half foot shorter yet is considered by most to be to more powerful of the duo. He is pale with regret and shame and cringes back against a large oak desk as if it's unyielding wood will help reinforce his current lack of courage. One must remember that power comes in many forms and some types of power are infinitely impotent without other kinds of power. This one, with a somehow ominous lightning shaped scar on his forehead, is obviously why they are in this position at all.

"I was worried!" Harry's protest comes in a bark as Ron's elbow lands on his solar plexus. Swiftly, the arm comes up and pins the boy to the table from which he had sought comfort. The other hand bunches into a fist and hovers in the air over this best friend's face.

"Please-" Harry whimpered, free hand up to ward off the blow he believes is coming.

"What? You think I'm going to waste my energy beating you up when we've got a test in Dark Arts in a couple of hours? Know me better than that, Harry, this is my year, remember?"

"Another shot anyway, right mate?"

Ron drew back and slapped his friend, Harry's expression of utter shock was offset only by Ron's own disbelieving face.

"You're such a git, you narc me out than act like I'm some kind of traitor when I slap your mouth for it. Who the fuck are you and where's Harry?"

"Don't be stupid," Harry struggled against Ron's grip.

"How can I be? Seems every other year you've been possessed by someone or thing, why not now? You certainly haven't been your cheery old self."

"There are rules-"

Ron reached back and slapped him again, Harry's head rocked back with the force of the blow.

He tongued blood from the corner of his mouth. "Hit me all you want, it doesn't change the facts."

"Fuck your rules. School rules and your own shiny new set." Ron could not remember having ever felt so furious. In the back of his mind, as his hand closed around Harry's scrawny neck, there was a sudden understanding that this was different from any other, something truly insidious, a seeping black hatred borne of someone else's jealous and selfish actions. All at once, he knew the difference between childhood anger and the kind of fury that ignited centuries worth of Wizard Wars. Suddenly, something else occurred to him as well.

"Was this all some kind of set up?" Ron's voice was low, his words dangerously soft and even. "I know you have it in you, set up Pansy and me, call me off for being outta bed and make good on all those old threats? Hermione - you can have her, mate. She's all yours. Hell, you could have had Pansy, too. But you don't want either, it's me, isn't it? Is it jealousy or love, Harry? Because right now, it's the same difference to me."

"You don't understand," Harry's voice was a cold whisper. He smiled despite that it obviously hurt him to do so. "You don't need to."

Harry's wand was across the room, but Ron wasn't dumb enough to think that someone with Harry's misdirected and only slightly harnessed power needed a wand to do serious damage. The most potent magic was wandless anyway - the kind of magic that came from preternatural fury or fear. Ron understood that his upper hand in this situation was quickly coming to an end. Even the air in the room seemed to bristle with emotion.

Ron took a step away from the desk, away from Harry crumpled against it like he'd seen him crumpled against so many objects. This time he felt nothing but revulsion. "This is harder for me, see, I didn't have any say, I was just ol' Harry Potter's sidekick and what do I get to show for it but a month's detention and a fifty point loss for the house? Imagine, I thought you'd be at my back." He stared his friend down. "I was always at yours."

"I did it for you," but even he knew this was Snape like weaseling. It was also an out-and-out lie and until this very second, part of him had actually believed he'd done it all for Ron.

Ron felt as though something was pouring out of him, strength probably, but he imagined this was a feeling similar to all the blood draining out of a body. "I'm not special, you are. I'm not remarkably, supernaturally talented, you are. I'm not internationally lauded, you are. I've never gone up against the Dark Lord, I've never battled Dragons. I can't produce a patronus. That's you. I'm not you. I'm not even like you. You're the special one. You're the one who will lead the abnormal life, good or bad. You're the boy who lived. I'm just Ron Weasely. I want to stay that way. Get it? Do what you do, do what you want, and so will I. Somehow, we'll get through this, each of us, in our own ways. Right?"

Harry, served more than his fragile mind could digest, fled from the room, the door swinging shut on Ron, standing taller and surer than he ever had within the walls of Hogwarts Castle.

On the far side of the castle, Cynthia stopped in her tracks. Somewhere within it all, something was coming loose, some unwatched part of the machine she'd been casing for the better part of the school year, was breaking down. A slipped cog no one, on either side of the front, had expected ever, let alone now.

XIII

There was a tangible tension in the Great Hall during breakfast. Snape combed his eyes over the present student body looking for fissures but saw none. Ron Weasely, who interested him so much these last few days, sat next to the vile Granger, Harry Potter sat on her other side. Pansy was at the proper table, in her proper place as well. He cast a sidelong glance down at Minerva, picking through her food without eating much. It dawned on him that this general malaise belonged to not just the student body. He set his fork down, noting he had little appetite himself, and tried to chalk it up to the storm, still lingering in the windows, casting the hall with gloom despite the bright, early hour.

Minerva had come down on the young Weasely with both feet, but Snape thought it wiser to allow the young Parkinson to believe she'd gotten away with her little escapade. If she persisted in trying to see him after Minerva had forbidden it, there was be a clearer idea as to whom was behind this cross-house romance. However, if Weasely pursued in spite of the warnings from his Head of House, then again, a very different picture might emerge.

Abruptly, Pansy rose and left the room. Just as abruptly, Weasely stood and exit in the opposite direction. The Granger girl followed Pansy, Erica Cain followed Ron. Intrigued, Snape pushed away from his plate and slipped from the room, determined to shadow the former pair.

"Wait!"

Pansy rolled her eyes and moved a touch faster. Granger, few people could have picked a worse time.

"C'mon, just a sec! I want to ask you something!"

Pansy whirled around, put her hands on her hips and glowered down at Hermione, "so ask."

Suddenly shy, Hermione did not look at the taller girl's face when she asked, "What are your intentions with Ron?"

She snorted, an ugly sound, mean and dismissive. "What do you care?"

"Look, I don't want a fight-"

"Sure about that? Seems your intention every other time you've talked to me for the last five years."

Like looking through a kaleidoscope and seeing the person on the other side, it dawned on Hermione that even bullies sometimes have trouble finding the line between aggressor and victim. "Pansy-"

"Do me a favor and don't call me by my proper name."

"Why do you hate me?"

"Why does anybody? You don't give others the chance to talk in class, you work ahead so the rest of us fall behind. We all know where you're going to be a ten years and it's a bugger. Why are you so surprised that people hate a show-off know-it-all?"

"You know, I hate you because you're so ready to buy into the stereotypes-"

"I'm sorry, but do I give a shit? Do you think you even register to me?" Pansy turned to leave, the scar in her wrist suddenly singing with pain.

Hermione stopped in the hall, glancing around before she said anything more, seeing they were, for the most part, alone, she called out, "What you're doing, the two of you, could destroy us all."

Pansy, who had made it far enough down the hall to start looking for her own bloodstain, threw down her bag and stalked back to Hermione, face twisted.

Hermione was not afraid and no longer shy. "You have no place with Ron, you know that. You feel it, that's why your angry, that's why you're so defensive. Sure, you could take me down physically, but all it would do is add to your heinous bitch reputation."

Snape inched up to the corner, hands clasped behind his back, watching the dramatic little scene as it unfolded in front of him, the players so sure they were alone.

"Can you be so positive? I know how you hate being beaten at anything. Even if you were only beaten." Her smile showed the fine, deep points of her canines.

"Do you even know who you are?"

"Pansy Parkinson, Slytherin, fifth year, pure blood, daughter of Daniel Parkinson. Who the fuck are you?"

"I'm a muggle born witch. I know my parents, my grandparents, my aunts, uncles, and cousins. Do you know your grandparents? Do you know your aunts and uncles and cousins? Do you even know your siblings?"

Recognizing this strange turn, Pansy kept her mouth shut.

"You're not a pure blood witch."

Hermione waited. Pansy, still as doe, did not reply.

"You might not even be a witch."

Beyond the hall, the sun broke through the clouds, washing the room in bright yellow light. It passed over Hermione, illuminating her earnest face, turning her mousy hair golden, but an unfortunate eave beyond the window cut the light before it could touch Pansy, as a result, she was darkened further, as if she were too dense for the light to get around. The rays seemed to simply bend away from her, blotting out her expression, enveloping her so completely that for a instant, it was almost as if she'd vanished. Snape rubbed his chin thoughtfully, sometimes there was meaning in the obviously meaningless.

Pansy stepped into the light, four inches taller than Hermione, looking down her nose and into the sunlit, up-turned face. Now she glowed too, a bright, burnished copper light radiating into Hermione's gold sphere. Snape knew that within this Shakespearean scene he was witnessing what might be the first of a lifetime's worth of conflict and contention, not too much unlike the rivalry between himself and James Potter.

Pansy's voice came across the silent, empty hall sweet as a song from out of the pax of the past. "What might I be then, if not a witch?"

Hermione paused before answering, carefully selecting her words now that Pansy had acquiesced to listen. "You might be a legend, you might be a myth. You might be an anomaly. You should make your own determination, but I implore you, find out."

"Funny," now Pansy's voice was the same conversational tone she used in class or with her superiors, "you're the second person in as many days to question my parentage. I guess I should call my mother." She paused, looking the other girl up and down for a split second, expression a little troubled, a little wounded. "Do you know what our house rules is, when it comes to questioning another's parentage?"

Perhaps she was lulled by Pansy's more friendly tone, maybe it was because she found comfort in that Pansy would talk at all, but she should not have been fooled. A wild animal, no matter how docile it may appear, is still only a wild animal. "No..."

Pansy looked down, then across the hall at her bag. With no warning and certainly, no visible recoil, she reached back and then slammed her fist forward, into the earnest, upturned face of Hermione Granger.

Reeling, Hermione clutched her exploded nose, and doubled over, spitting a mouthful of blood onto the floor only steps from where Pansy had split her wrist two days prior. Pansy looped her arm around the girl's shoulder and in the same, singing sweet voice, whispered, "I will call my mother and thanks for your warning."

Pansy picked up her bag with what she was referring to as her good hand and didn't even look back as she sauntered from the hall, feeling better than she had in days.

Snape counted to a hundred and then oozed from his hiding place and into Hermione's view.

"Granger, why are you bleeding all over the hall?"

She knew better than to be honest with Pansy's head of house, "Nosebleed, I get them without warning," she managed as she hobbled out his line of fire.

He watched her go, giving her credit for not being a nasty tattle tale, and maybe, he admitted begrudgingly, a little impressed by what she'd attempted to do, which was something no one at Hogwarts had yet found the guts to try.

XIV

Erica followed Ron down the hall, waving off those who tried to speak to her, pointing boldly at the boy she was after and shaking her head. She figured he had two choices, either he was headed straight to Potions or would maybe detour to the Prefect's Bathroom. Either way, she had every intention of speaking to him before she let him lay eyes on Pansy again.

He took a left instead of the stairs, indicating he was on his way to class. Her time was limited but the hall was crowded, it was one thing to be seen stalking down a Weasely, but it was an entirely different matter to be seen talking to him in public, alone, and what with the ghastly drama of the last few days.

He crossed the hall and headed towards the quad, it was mostly empty due to the wet weather. It was still sprinkling and Ron looked up, into the rain, stopping long enough to allow Erica to catch up.

"Oy, double ugly, looking for your mum?"

Ron turned his head in the direction of her voice and not recognizing it, opened his eyes. He was on guard when he saw it was one of the Snake Charmers. "What on earth do you want?"

"Of course, if a girl talks to you, she must want something." Erica saw, of course, what Pansy did, which was someone who had not been handsome in the past becoming so. She saw it in his hands and face, in the breadth of his shoulders and the way he regarded her, even despite how she'd addressed him. Weasely, despite it all, would grow up a gentleman and soldier, just like his father and brothers.

"Most of them do is all," he kept his hands deep in his pockets but did take a step in her direction. "So what do you want with ol' double ugly?"

She smiled in spite of herself. "Just a friendly warning."

"That'll be the sixth this morning and we can call it a round bakers' dozen for the last three days."

She opened her mouth to speak again and Ron held up his hand, "Look, I know it's a conflict of interest, I know it's a bad idea, Bad Idea, in capital letters. Will you all feel better if I tell you I won't see her anymore?"

Erica furrowed her brow, "That wasn't much of a challenge."

"It's not your challenge, why are you looking for one?"

"Maybe I want you for myself."

It was as much a surprise to hear for Erica as if was for Ron. He peered at her in disbelief, waiting for her to add some acerbic remark, she did not.

"Are you bloody serious?"

Erica shrugged, watching his face. Maybe, she reflected, yeah, maybe she was. After all, there were reasons Pansy couldn't have Ron, there were no reasons, no tenements of prophecy forbidding her from getting close to someone like Weasely. Besides, she was aching to know where Pansy had gone the night before, literally and figuratively. Ron could tell, hell, he could even show her. It excited her.

"This is too much, all of you, weird. Weird," he repeated for good measure, taking two steps backwards before feeling he was safe enough to turn away entirely.

"Ron."

He faced her, reluctance plain as day on his face.

"All joking aside, there is no way for you to know what you're walking into if you don't talk to me."

"I can talk to her."

"She doesn't even know."

"Don't be ridiculous. How could you know more about someone than they know about themselves?"

"Don't you be ridiculous. You're the first person Potter met after he found out he was a wizard. How can someone be so important and not know until they were eleven years old? The Ministry still knows more about Potter than they're willing to let him in on. More than he can even figure out with all your help and you don't think that we can keep things from our own just as well? Maybe, maybe even better?"

Ron came closer, the crowds had emptied from the halls and he knew they were both going to be late to Potions. He was starting to wonder if he'd ever get there on time again. "I don't want to know anything about her that she doesn't already know."

"Fine. Maybe you'll string it together for her, see, sometimes, all you need is to be objective.

Her parents are divorced, her father lives in the United States, Pansy's mother lives outside Berwick, but the family's from Belfast - clue #1. Her older brothers died in a plane crash in 1982, they were students here at that time and substantially older than her - clue #2. Her mother? The family name is Grue - look it up because she never has. I don't know why, and you'll wonder too - clue #3.

She's never actually gone anywhere with Draco, with the exception of that Yule Ball, no woman ever will," she looked Ron pointedly in the eye. "But the families, Pansy's mother and Draco's family," she crossed her finger to indicate how close they were. "Clue #4."

"So? What's all this supposed to mean to me?"

Erica put her fingers down. Her urge was to be honest, which was not an urge she got on a regular basis. She told him so, "but I'm worried. Do you believe that? I'm afraid of what'll happen if she doesn't find out soon." Erica stuck her fingers in her mouth, an old nervous habit. She had the sensation of being on a precipice where she could step back, away from the scary edge and walk away, resigned to returning to where she'd come from. Maybe spending her life wondering what would have happen, even regretting it. Scary. Or she could step over the edge and perhaps enact a greater change, send out a greater wave, then she could ever understand. Scarier. This and Pansy's fate, who was she to meddle so, and even if the urge to meddle was there, who could tell her it was right?

Ron grabbed her arm, yanking her fingers from her mouth with a small pop. He said nothing, freckles standing out on his face, pale from anticipation or perhaps the cold. "What exactly are you trying to do here?"

She was nakedly honest when she replied, "I don't know."

"I need you to know," Ron said, nodding his head slowly, leaning in close. "It's not just you, there's been more weird talk about this then I could ever have imagined possible. I like her, but I get this feeling that all of you-" he flicked the Slytherin crest on her robe with the back of his finger for emphasis, "consider her some kind of Princess or Heiress of some kind. Like I'm standing in the way of some patient betrothal. What is she?"

Erica, who really didn't know, shook her head, suddenly filled with cobwebs. It was as if she'd just woken up, here, in the middle of the rainy quad, face to face with a Weasely.

"Fine," Ron said, backing away for the second time. "Keep your little riddles and mysteries. There's nothing I need to know that you can tell me."

Erica watched him go, wracking her brain, trying to remember what it was she had thought so important to tell him. She could barely remember breakfast, or where she was headed, it was as if a veil had descended between the hemispheres of her brains, cutting off all communication. She had the sudden urge to talk to her mother. She wished she were at home.

She didn't see Livia Rookwood standing by the sundial, no one ever saw Livia Rookwood, which is how she did what she did so well.