Harry Potter and the Second Prophecy

Chapter 18 - Decisions

Camilia had read her ancestor's book cover to cover and found nothing that would suggest to her how or why Charity had killed herself. She realized in this instant that the book had been meaningful, not as an instruction manual for suicide, but as having contained the spell that brought Camilia here at precisely this moment. There was, in the Pritchard's book, spells both for summoning people and for altering time. Each had warnings as postscripts. She remembered that altering time was dangerous because of what the outcome would be, and remembered that summoning people was risky because if the individual was not adequately prepared for the possibility of a summoning, their hearts might stop when the summoning occurred.

The spells were long and nearly impossible to perform, except for a very gifted wizard or witch. Charity had been just such a witch, and determined enough to do what it took to bring her future to her. She had sent a vision to her descendent almost four hundred years from that moment and had opened the channel for Camilia to enter her realm when she summoned the green flame, closing the conduit by allowing herself to be engulfed by the flames...the flames that had resembled those created by Floo powder. Finally, she had summoned the very descendent she must of necessity reach by sacrificing her own blood to bring her.

But it wasn't necessary to sacrifice all your blood! thought Camilia frantically. Just blood from the rib of Eve! Not all of it!

Now here she was, in the flesh, staring at the striking, pale-faced beauty before her. She did not notice the biting cold against her bare skin or the leaves crunching underfoot; she felt only the chill of seeing, firsthand, dark red blood pouring from side of her ancestor's body, soaking into her thin white undergarments. The mahogany dress Camilia had seen in her dream had been cast off, and the kitchen knife lay at Charity's feet.

Then, just as in her dream, Charity looked up from her place amongst the flames, still clutching the rock with her blood-covered hands. She looked into Camilia's eyes, and Camilia noticed that Charity glanced at her own reddened hands that looked at that moment so like Camilia's own. Her eyes then locked on Camilia, more intense than any gaze she had ever before held.

As deep and severe as was Charity's gaze, it was also warm, gentle, kindly, and affectionate. In that look, she communicated to Camilia exactly what was required of her as the descendent of a Danforth, and in that moment, Camilia knew her future.

She wanted dreadfully to speak to Charity, to explain that she understood, that she was a woman up to the task. She wanted to make clear to her forebear that she appreciated what Charity was even then doing for her, and that she would not betray that sacrifice. She realized that the history books were wrong; her ancestor had not committed suicide to seal a counter-curse upon her own family; she had done that long before this occasion. Charity had instead chosen to act in similitude, since she could not act as proxy, and in doing so, had made the ultimate sacrifice. She was Camilia's paradigm.

All this dawned on Camilia in a millisecond, and just as she was about to open her mouth to connect to Charity verbally, to reassure her that her immense sacrifice would not be in vain, Charity vanished in a cloud of ash.

This time she did not scream. Instead she moved slowly forward to the ash scattered about the leaves on the ground, and touched her bloodied fingertips to it. She took a deep breath, preparing herself for to meet her destiny, and reached her hand out to touch the flames before her.

In an instant she was back, her body still being used by Riddle, Malfoy still staring, slack-jawed, at their rutting bodies. They did not known she had been gone from them.

She felt again the pleasure coursing through her body and the desire to continue allowing herself to be used; she looked again into Riddle's arresting emerald eyes, and she could feel the power in them, the hunger in them. She mustered her strength and grabbed hold of Riddle's back.

"Ow!" she squeaked, and he stopped thrusting momentarily.

"What is it?" he demanded, frustrated at having to cease his ministrations.

"My...my hands...I can't touch you," she sighed, shaking her head. "Draco wounded me..." Camilia's voice trailed off and the accusation hung in the air like a thick fog.

"Draco," snapped Riddle, "heal her."

"But, my Lord," began Malfoy, blubbering, "if I heal her, she - "

"You dare to question me, Dragon? Do it now!" Riddle's tone left no room for argument.

Malfoy relented. "As you wish, my Lord," he said, and with a flick of his wand and a muttered "Dextella Integra!" her hands were whole.

"Thank you, Tom," said Camilia, and braced herself to face her fate. Looking into his eyes, so green, but so very different from Harry's, the young woman began her work. She ran her nails down Riddle's back, hoping to distract him from the fact that her hands were now in a position to perform her magic and to convince him he'd made the right decision having her hands restored by Malfoy's spell. Using her left hand to call forth the green flames she'd practiced summoning with Dumbledore, she consumed the candlestick on the floor next to Harry, and her right to dig hard into the flesh of Tom's back, Camilia's power engulfed the both of them in its own blue electric light.

The flames engulfed the candlestick, and it glowed from its center a bright purple, the light within it pulsating and increasing in size with each pulse, until the entire object was glowing. The pulsing slowed and the purple light being emitted from the candlestick intensified.

Meanwhile, Riddle and Camilia both felt the electricity she had created coursing through their bodies. He could not tear himself from her and was therefore trapped, connected fully to her body, screaming and writhing and cursing her. He turned to Malfoy, begging him to do something, but Malfoy was frozen in his terror, having knocked over his chair as he attempted to scramble away from the power that had consumed them.

The candlestick, still glowing purple, was now glowing so brightly that Malfoy found he could not turn toward it. He crept behind his fallen chair, using it as a shield for his eyes, when suddenly it rose up from the floor and hovered in the air, spinning madly within the flames surrounding it.

Four things happened then, almost simultaneously: the heavy gold of the candlestick split and it fell to the carpet in two pieces while the flames receded, the prostrate form of Riddle that had been lying atop Camilia seemed to splinter and then vanish, Harry sat straight up, fully restored to himself, and Camilia, her eyes on Harry, breathed her last breath.

Malfoy, terrified by what he'd seen and how badly his charge had failed, hit the ground running and with an almost imperceptible "Alohamora!" raced from the room. Harry, however, stood and approached the bed, paying Malfoy no mind. He approached Camilia's body, expecting her to open her eyes, to speak to him, to hug and hold and caress him and revel in her success with him, or at the very least to attempt to cover her nakedness. She did none of those. Instead she lay still, her hands having been made whole, but her heart having stopped its beating.

Harry touched her face, listened for breath, felt for her pulse, but knew, deep down, it was all in vain. He felt shattered, but he could summon no tears. Even now, next to her empty shell, he found he would not accept she was gone.

He spoke to her, told her that he had heard what had gone on, that he knew she had won in the end, that she had been successful, and how proud he was of her. He told her that he had heard her say she loved him, and that it meant the world to him. He explained to her that he loved her as well, and knew that, because he loved her, she couldn't be dead. She couldn't, because he'd never had a chance to tell her that he loved her, as a friend or otherwise. He spoke matter-of-factly, waiting for her to begin to breathe again, waiting for her to open her eyes...but it didn't happen. He reached for the same blanket he'd wrapped around her shoulders earlier, which had fallen on the floor, and he draped it gently over her, pulling it up only to her shoulders, wanting to be sure she was covered.

Finally he convinced himself that if he called her name, if he tried to do the same thing she had tried to do for him, she would open her eyes to the sound of it. "Camilia," he began, "Open your eyes. Come on, Camilia, we need to get you to the hospital wing." He had moved to shake her. "You can't just lie here, Camilia, you'll need to be see by Madam Pomfrey!" He ran his hand through her hair to the back of her head and lifted it off the bed. "Camilia! CAMILIA!" But just as her pleas had done nothing to help Harry, his did nothing to restore her. She was gone.

Harry lay her head back down very gently, stood up and smoothed his pants, looked absently around the room and back at her lifeless body lying on the bed, and then rubbed his face hard with both hands. When he brought his hands back down, he found that there was dried blood on them, and couldn't remember having been injured. He found dried blood on his clothes, as well, and knew that the handprints that had made them must have been Camilia's hands.

Harry turned and swept his wand from the floor, then pointed it at a large decorative vase on a table across the room. "Confractum!" he bellowed, and the vase exploded, its shards spraying everything around it. He swung around and was face to face with a row of knick knacks on the mantel. "Considio!" he screamed, and each item was swept from the mantel one by one and came crashing to the floor. Harry looked above him to the chandelier overhead, and he could not help himself; an enraged scream of "Degravo!" left his lips, and the chandelier fell to the floor in pieces, narrowly missing both Harry and the bed, where Camilia's prostrate body still lay.

He focused then on her, and began a tirade he'd never imagined coming from his own lips. "HOW COULD YOU DO THIS?" he began, his breath failing him periodically. "HOW COULD YOU LEAVE ME LIKE THIS? Why am I ALWAYS the one to pick up the pieces? You can't just DIE on me, God damn it! GET UP!" he screamed at the top of his lungs. "GET UP, you STUPID, STUPID..." His voice trailed away; he wanted to be angry at her, but he just couldn't bring himself to continue his verbal attack. Thoughts and images were rushing through his mind: when he first saw her, late nights discussing lessons with Dumbledore, her first encounter with house elves, spying on Malfoy with her. Thinking of Malfoy, an image, unbidden, crept in; he could almost see her with Tom Riddle, her legs wrapped around him, moaning into the crook of his neck, just as she'd done with Harry the night before, and rage washed over him once more.

"YOU KNEW WHAT WAS COMING! DUMBLEDORE WARNED YOU! WHY DIDN'T YOU KEEP UP YOUR LESSONS?" He was so incensed that he was practically fuming. "WHY DID YOU EVER LET HIM TOUCH YOU? You SAID you loved ME! THERE WAS NO OTHER WAY FOR THIS TO END! HOW COULD YOU NOT KNOW THAT?" Harry chucked his wand at the floor and reached for the fire poker Malfoy had used to threaten him earlier. He went around the room smashing anything he could find to smash, beating on and tearing through furniture, tapestries, paintings, and carpeting, and when at last he swung the poker at one of the four post of the bed and realized what he was doing, he flung the poker to the floor and slumped against the wall nearest Camilia's head, exhausted.

The tears still would not come, but the as he sat there in a heap on the floor, he could not keep Camilia's last words to him from echoing through his skull. "I love you, Harry Potter...I love you, Harry Potter..." she repeated over and over again. "I love you, Harry Potter."

* * * * * * * *

Harry wasn't sure how long he'd been there when he finally looked up, but there before him was Albus Dumbledore, flanked by Professors McGonagall and Snape. Why did he have to bring Snape? thought Harry irritably. Why should he get to see me like this? In fact, Harry couldn't stand to have anyone see him like this, or Camilia, either. "Please go," he asked, not looking up at any of them, but half ordering and half begging them to leave.

"Harry," said Dumbledore gently, and Harry glanced up at him. He saw that the Headmaster was blinking back tears.

"You could have stopped this, you know!" screamed Harry suddenly, not knowing where it came from. He had not spoken this way to Professor Dumbledore since Sirius had been killed last year. "You could have saved her! Why didn't you insist she keep up her lessons? Why didn't you forbid her from spending time with Malfoy? You could have - "

But Professor McGonagall interrupted Harry. "That is quite enough, Potter," she said quietly, but there was an edge to her voice that informed him that he needed to reign in his emotions. "The Headmaster has just lost a student, and now is not the time - "

The Headmaster cut her off. "Minerva, I believe I shall take it from here, but thank you," he added, and nodded in her direction. She nodded in return, and pulled Snape off to the other side of the room.

"I'm going to have Professor McGonagall see to the body," Dumbledore said quietly to Harry, "and have Professor Snape both take the broken candlestick on the floor to Professor Moody and track down Draco Malfoy."

Harry looked miserable. "It was like the diary, wasn't it?" he asked Dumbledore.

"It was; it contained a bit of Tom Riddle's soul. The darkest of magic. Such things are called Horcruxes, Harry, but I think it best to discuss them in my office."

"Yes, sir," said Harry, hanging his head. "What is Professor McGonagall going to do with her?" he asked, turning to look on Camilia's body.

"We will arrange for a burial and a memorial service of some sort," replied Dumbledore, "but in the meantime we need to put her somewhere that she'll be unlikely to be disturbed, or found by wandering students, as it were."

Harry nodded, but could not tear his gaze from her. Dumbledore closed his eyes, and within himself found the truth: Harry and Camilia had been intimate, and so Harry's loss was going to be far more difficult to overcome than had they been simply good friends.

"Are you ready?" he asked Harry.

"Ready?" Harry repeated.

"To go to my office," replied Dumbledore.

"May I have just another minute?" he entreated the Headmaster.

"Of course, Harry...but just a moment more," he said.

Harry walked over Camilia. He then touched her hair, her face, and did what he'd never imagined he would have a desire to do: he kissed her gently on the cheek, then turned from her and left with Dumbledore, never looking back.