Darkly Bound

Darkly Bound

Chapter 5

There was a single lamp lit in the library three nights later when I arrived near midnight with my trunk. I had removed some articles I had used briefly as an Auror, and carefully checked each remaining item. These were the things that had aroused Moody's suspicions three nights ago. They had come from a time in my life I thought I had put firmly behind me. But here I was, carrying them with me once again on my way to perform the blood majick. I got to the table and looked around for Snape. He wasn't there. Certainly he'd been here earlier. The lamp must be the portkey. I grabbed a handle of the trunk tightly with one hand and the lamp with the other and was instantly swept up and deposited on a grassy hillside. It was dark, but the lamplight was sufficient to show that I had arrived in the center of an ancient stone circle. "Perfect!" I smiled. I could not imagine a more suitable spot for the witchcraft that would take place here I walked around the circle and touched each of the stones. How many thousand years had they stood here? How many wonders, how many horrors had they witnessed?

"I hope you approve," Snape had arrived.

"I do," I answered. "Hogwarts?"

"A hundred miles away, but don't let that lull you into thinking we're alone."

"Oh no. We've got quite an audience, I daresay."

I went back to the center of the circle where I had left my trunk near what was probably an ancient altar stone. I began to remove the items I would need from the trunk. Snape watched carefully. I set the obsidian mirror on the old altar stone. Next to that I placed a long bundle, still wrapped. Then several small bags containing herbs. "Ah! Here, you'll want some of this first" I pulled out a bottle of good Carribean rum and took a swig before handing the bottle over to Snape. "One can't practice voodoo without good rum, that's lesson number one, Professor." He took the bottle from me, raised one eyebrow and took a healthy swig himself.

"Now, the circle," I said. I walked around to each of the stones in the circle and ignited a fire at the base of each one until we were surrounded by a protective circle of stone guarded by flame. "Are you ready?"

"I am," he said smoothly.

"Once I start this it can't be stopped. You must see it through. You know that."

"I have some experience with this sort of thing."

"Good. So you won't get squeamish on me?"

"Squeamish? No."

"Fine then. Shall we begin?" I motioned for him to stand several feet away from the altar stone. As he moved away I took off my heavy cloak to free my arms and picked up the last leather bag out of my trunk. Walking backwards around the altar I sprinkled a circle of salt around it, leaving only a small opening. Snape watched all this with an unfathomable look in his eyes. If this was going to work I was going to need to get his attention. Normally I didn't like to fall back on showmanship and theatrics, but in this case I though it couldn't hurt. I took a large swig of the rum but held it in my mouth until I could reach my wand and produce a tiny spark at the end of it. Remembering my lessons at the feet of the hou'gan I spewed the rum out from between my teeth in a fine spray, igniting the alcohol and producing a fine plume of blue and yellow flames which appeared to leap from my mouth.

Snape jumped like he'd been snake-bit.

"Severus Snape!" I called, "How come you to this circle?"

"Of my own free will," he replied, noticeably shaken as he stepped into the ring. I stepped behind him and closed the circle with the rest of the salt.

"The circle is complete, the binding has begun," I spit on the mirror and it's center began to show it's dull red glow. I indicated that Snape was to do the same. He did, and the glow increased.

"Water with water,"

I picked up the long parcel and carefully unwrapped it. The obsidian blade was ancient, but the edge had been so finely hewn that it was transparent. I extended my forearm over the stone and with one quick motion, cut a long slash from which blood began to flow instantly onto the mirror.

I handed the blade over to Snape. He didn't hesitate, but laid the blade down on the altar to loosen his sleeve. That quickly done, he too made a slash across his forearm, and I noticed he took care to cut into his infamous "dark mark". His blood flowed freely onto the mirror and mixed with mine.

"Blood with blood," and so I began the incantation:

"No mountain nor valley will hinder you.
No forest nor mountain will keep you.
Not rivers of fire, Nor rivers of blood will divert you.
No man, no woman, no angel from heaven nor demon from hell
will deter you from your return to me.

We are blood-bound, we can not be kept apart body from body, soul from soul "

I reached over and grabbed his hand, holding our cut forearms together so that now the blood mingled before it fell to the now fiery red glass. A heat I didn't expect ignited where our skin met. I grasped his hand harder against the instinct that screamed at me to pull away. The heat eased, and in its place came a spark of power that grew in force until it became a surge of incandescent energy that flowed between us like the lightning between the earth and sky.

I looked up into his face. His eyes were closed. I could see into his thoughts and knew that the spell had taken hold.

"We are bound. It is complete. The spell can not be broken." I let go of his hand. He opened his eyes and blinked a couple of times at the brightness of the light that was now coming off the blood soaked mirror. I handed him one of the small bags of herbs. I took the other, opened it and sprinkled some of the herbs onto the mirror. Wordlessly he followed suit.

"You'll want your wand now," I said, as I picked mine up and pointed it at the mirror. He found his wand and held it at the ready.

"We hereby seal this covenant, witness well you spirits of earth and sky."

At that, the tips of both wands sparked with flame. The mixture of spittle, blood and herbs burst into a blaze of orange and purple flame then smouldered into a thick black smoke. When it cleared, the mirror was pristine. Not a spot of blood or spec of ash remained.

"That's it. It's done," I said.

"That's it?" Snape was still staring at the mirror.

"You wanted more? I'll breathe fire for you again if you like."

"No, save that for the Leaving Feast. Tell me something."

"Yes?"

"Have you done this before?"

"No."

"Ah."

"It worked.You know it did. I can drag you back through the very gates of hell now. In fact, I've got the easy part."

"How so?" He looked at me then and for the first time since we'd met I didn't feel like I was sitting exams.

"You, Professor, have to make sure that I've got something worth dragging back."

6

I could feel him coming before I could hear him. I had just returned from teaching a class in dowsing and was standing near my desk shuffling through some papers still in my heavy wool cloak. "Come in, Professor Moody," I shouted just before he knocked. He came in, looking angry, but I had felt that too. The Professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts had taken a disliking to me and I knew there was little I could ever do that would dispel it.

"You have some questions, Professor?" I asked as he shut the door roughly.

"Miss Claros, I thought I had explained all this the night I arrived. You don't seem to have heard a word I said to you! You insist on putting yourself into dangerous situations and I insist on knowing why."

I took my cloak off and hung it on a coat rack by the door. "Would you like something to drink?" I asked, knowing he'd say no, and conjured a mug of hot coffee for myself.

"No, thank you. I only want an explanation of why you have such a particular interest in Professor Snape."

"You don't like him much, do you?" I had sensed a deep animosity between the two of them from the first.

"We have a history," he grunted.

"I'd imagine so," I leaned against the front of my desk. "For your information, I don't have any particular personal interest in Professor Snape, but I can see where you might get that idea. We do seem to cross paths, don't we?"

Moody glared at me and his unnatural eye glittered. "Miss Claros, I am not here to play word games. I don't trust Severus Snape. He's cunning and deceitful and would stab you in the back as soon as look at you. I know his type and I'm beginning to suspect you're it."

"Well! I'm not sure what to say to defend myself against that. You have my record as an Auror."

"Never met an Auror who skulked around in henges doing blood sacrifices," he mumbled.

Now he was getting on my nerves. "Professor Moody, I have never attempted to hide anything from anyone. My history is no secret. Dumbledore knows everything. He should have told you. If you want to hear it you'll hear the whole thing. Please, sit."

I walked across the room and tried to collect my thoughts. It had been a long time since I'd had to recount this story, a history I'd spent years hiding from. I looked out over the rolling landscape outside the window and longed to just fly from that window to escape what I was about to recount. I took a deep breath and turned back to Moody.

"I was married once, a long time ago, right out of the Academy. You might take it upon yourself, after hearing this, to find out to whom. It may lower your opinion of me even further. That's of no matter to me. Of course, we were far too young. I should have known better, of course. Clairvoyant, telepathic, empathic, it all means nothing when you're 17 and in love. Corbin was brilliant. A born scholar. Between his knowledge and my insight we made a formidable pair. Immediately upon leaving school, we married and went into the deep south, that's the American south, to study the ritual magic that was widely practiced there. Our intent was to study it in it's purest form, to determine it's origins, to separate ir from the various Muggle religions that had grown up in and around it or been incorporated into it.

We lived among those people, we became accepted by them and they taught us things we'd never seen at school. It was fascinating. I still have piles of notes and diaries at the Academy library.

Eventually we followed a powerful wizard, posing as a voodoo priest called Houn'gan, further south to the West Indies. He was going to take us to some ancient temples in Mexico and South America where he had learned some powerful magic. I didn't want to go, and I told them, but Corbin insisted. He used the research as leverage and made a powerful argument. We could be on the way to finding the origins of some of this ancient ritual. After all, it was the ritual, more so than the magic that held him in thrall. While I spent hours dissecting complicated incantations, examining the meanings and use of talismans and amulets, he would spend twice the time poring over religions and rituals. He became quite obsessed with such matters. And he began to turn away from me. He saw us as working at cross purposes. While I worked at finding the pure magic in these complex and ancient ceremonies, he began to see my work as a sacrilege. He fell deeper and deeper in with the Houn'gan and became angrier every time I questioned the reasoning behind the use of a certain ritual or a particularly horrific blood sacrifice."

I broke off my narrative. "You witnessed the binding spell I performed with Snape?"

"Yes, of course. Several of us observed it."

"Good. What you saw was the spell in its purest form. Stripped of ritual and superstition it is really quite simple. It is certainly not what you just called a sacrifice. One can see it's origins quite clearly in the ancient arcana. Anyway, to continue, of course, as these things always do, the best thing that ever happened to me occurred at the beginning of absolute worst time in my life. I discovered I was pregnant. As was the tradition among those people, the women moved me out of my husband's home and into a communal women's dwelling. I was relieved actually and not only enjoyed the extra attention but was a party to the most sacred women's rituals and domestic magic of that society. I saw Corbin occasionally, but I had detached myself from him. I could not endanger the health of my growing baby with the psychic turmoil that was occurring in my husband. After a while I stopped noticing that the women actively avoided him and took great pains to keep us far apart. I have to tell you that the months I spent with those women, women who some here would look down on as savages were the some of the most happy and peaceful of my life. My daughter Rennie was born among them, delivered into the world into loving arms, surrounded by a roomful of loving aunts. She'd need them.

During those same months that I had found peace, Corbin had found Hell, and found it suited him. When I emerged from the women's dwelling, carrying his daughter he was completely changed. He looked upon us with absolute contempt and said nothing. Nothing! This man who I had loved since boyhood, with whom I had shared everything, with whom I had created this perfect child, looked upon me as nothing. He took one step toward me and looked down into his own daughter's sleeping face. His face registered no emotion. 'Go home,' he told me flatly and pointed to the hut I had left months earlier. I went, laid Rennie in the basket of soft blankets someone had left in the tent in preparation for our return, one of the village girls, no doubt and found one of my cooking bowls and filled it with clean water. I cast a skrying spell and looked into the bowl. The evolution of my husband from brilliant student and loving husband to cold, unfeeling Caplata began to play before my eyes. He'd fallen further into the darkness than I could have imagined. I saw unspeakable ceremonies. Horrific sacrifices. You are seeing this?"

Moody nodded silently, his magical eye was staring off in the distance as if watching my story on a Muggle television.

I nodded and continued, "So I knew. He had become a master of Dark Magic and during the time of my confinement with the village women had come to dominate and terrorize the society we had come to study. He could kill with a mere glance and did so in my presence. The entire village was under his complete control. It took him very little time to decide that since I was a witch, using my blood in his outrageous rituals would add to his power. I submitted to his torture because it seemed to distract him from tormenting the villagers. Then one night I felt him approaching; I could hear the chanting but knew he wasn't coming for me. He had eyes only for my daughter. He had come for a new sacrifice. His own flesh and blood. I was nearly paralyzed with fear and horror and had only seconds to do something before he reached us. I grabbed Rennie and fled from the hut. I only looked back long enough to send a conflagration spell from my wand and cause our hut to erupt into a roaring fire. Corbin's mind was addled by some sort of narcotic potion he had taken before coming to take Rennie and the fire confused him for longer than I had expected.

I made it to the women's dwelling. It took only moments for a party of villagers to be brought together to escort us out of the village. I had no time to thank these people for the kindness they had shown me, for all they had taught me. And to make matters worse, I was leaving them with Corbin. I never saw any of them again.

I went back to the States with Rennie and thought it was over. I stayed with some friends in Louisiana for a short time, only telling them that Corbin had stayed on in the Islands to continue his research. But it wasn't over. I began to notice that we were being watched. Ravens would circle over us while Rennie would play in the park. I began to notice a black aura around her at times and I knew he was trying to find her. I couldn't let that happen. There was only one way to hide her from him and it was the most horrible thing I have ever had to do."

Moody coughed, "You don't have to continue. I'm sure you've said more than--"

"I will continue! I'm tired of running from this. The questions have been asked, you'll damned well have the courtesy to sit and listen to the answers!"

He was silent.

"One night at the full moon, I took my little daughter, sat her on some soft grass by a river bed, and cast a spell that took away her identity. It was the blackest, most evil spell I have ever cast, and it stripped her of anything that her father would find recognizable.

Then I took her to a home for foundlings and left her. I left her with Muggles to be raised by Muggles as a Muggle. I did give myself one thing to hold on to. Do you see this?" I pulled the chime that Snape had admired out of my robes and dangled it before him.

"Aye," he said staring at it closely with both eyes. "There's some enchantment about it, no doubt. I can see that."

"As long as I kept this with me, I could find her. If only so that I could know that she was still living. I would never know where she was, or even who she was, but I'd know if she was alive, and if she was happy.

Eventually I left the south for the University at Salem. There I stayed, enjoying, if that is the right word, a life of academic anonymity, until the Tribunals. You know about the Salem Tribunals and my part in them."

"Yes, that part we all know."

"Very good. But what you don't know is that the very last trial I was assigned to was that of a rogue vodun priest who was picked up by Muggle police on a murder charge in New Orleans. I won't bore you with the details but what he did was unimaginable and done in public under the guise of an entertainment. Their system considered him to be insane and our agents managed to get him transferred over to us for trial. Of course it was Corbin. When the truth of what he'd done was exposed, the justices were appalled. He was executed."

"Pardon?"

"Executed. Killed. When he saw me and knew I was involved in his conviction, he looked at me with his familiar contempt and revulsion and spat out his last and most horrible curse. He broke the last remaining tie between me and my lost daughter. The enchantment you see here? Merely the ghost of a charm. The connection was broken." I dropped the amulet back into my robes and it chimed softly as it fell.

I turned quickly toward the window so Moody would not be able to see the tears that were falling from my eyes. "He was an extremely powerful dark wizard by that time. I have searched for a counter curse for years and haven't found one. Even if I had, I doubt I'd be powerful enough to make it work. Do you know I can hear the thoughts of every child in this school? I can feel their feelings? Share with them their thoughts and dreams, but I can not even detect the heartbeat, the essence of my own daughter?"

Moody cleared his throat, clearly uncomfortable.

"Do you see now? There are few wizards powerful enough to break a spell like that. I knew there was one here and when he contacted me I allowed myself a little hope. But I doubted he'd do it, it'd mean Dark Magic. Then I met your Professor Snape. Do you know how powerful he is? I've felt it twice. Once in the potions classroom and then at the Binding. He is far more powerful now than Corbin ever was, even at the end. He is skilled in the Dark Arts. Do you see why it was so important that I get Snape out of Azkaban alive and whole? I have a job to do here and I intend to see it though. Then, possibly, yes. I may well have a personal interest in Professor Snape."