The Fire Wand

The Fire Wand

Chapter 12; Forgotten

'And this is how you remind me
of what I really am
this is how you remind me
of what I really am
. And I've been wrong
I've been down into the bottom of every bottle.'
Nickleback - This is How You Remind Me.

She was running, falling, crashing down upon the slate tiles so hard that her knees screeched with the sudden blaze of pain. It ricocheted up through her legs, numbed the lower half of her body.

Behind her, the offending wand lay forgotten.

'Severus. Severus! Professor Snape!' Siana called, panicked. She touched the trickle of blood escaping his mouth, lifted back his eyelids, saw dilated pupils. He was barely breathing, breathing irregularly. 'Snape. Snape wake up! Please please...oh, oh wand. Wand.' She said stiltedly, turning around and crawling to her wand, robes pooling around her.

She grabbed it uncertainly, stared at it for a moment like it was a different thing altogether from a piece of wood. Stared it at it, like it was a cruel monster, capable of evil things. The wand chooses the owner...it chose me. God. No. Come on Siana MOVE.

'Enervate!' She cried, pointing the wand at the unconscious man on the cold tiles.

The wand sputtered a little, a small flame of light shot out of the end, and nothing happened. Nothing at all. He didn't even stir. 'Enervate!' Siana said again, louder, concentrating as best she could with the worry racing around her brain. I've never been good at this spell. Ever. She thought anxiously, as once again the spell did no good.

She dropped the wand, out of ideas, and with difficulty moved her hands under his shoulders. She slumped under his dead weight as she tried to lift him. She didn't dare transfigure him into something to move him upstairs more easily, not in the current state her body was in, not after she had just done...done...that.

'But I was so sure. Sure you were. God what's wrong with me?' She whimpered helplessly as she eased him back down to the ground, breathing hard.

For a moment she just sat there fighting tears, against the stone cold tiles, wondering what to do now. She was in the middle of nowhere, she couldn't move him, and he could be dying...dying.

Morosely she sat there, minutes passing as she fought shock and disbelief, grief and trauma. How could I do this? What's happening to me? I was so sure it was Frederick, by Artemis, I was so sure. Why did I hallucinate then? And how could...how did that happen? What have I done to him? Outside a rumble of thunder sounded and she shivered even though she could still feel the sun pouring through some of the snake cast windows. She watched, blankly as the light glinted off the shattered glass and gleamed off the green potion.

Potion?

'That's it!' Siana stood so suddenly her knees seemed to groan in frustration. Automatically she reached for her wand, pocketed it, and looked towards the stairs. If I can find a potion, he has to have a healing potion in his stores. He just has to. I just...hope he keeps them labelled. He'd have to keep them labelled. She looked at Snape uncertainly, not wanting to leave him, but his condition seemed to be stable, not improving or declining in nature.

She sprinted up the stairs, holding her long robes up so that she wouldn't trip. She flew into Snape's room and opened up the large black case at the base of his bed. There were black robes, more black robes, a few things she didn't recognise, a collapsible silver cauldron, scales, bags of ingredients. As she lifted it all up she saw a toiletry bag and ignored it as she saw the small stoppered bottles, each with a different sigil on them. She lifted a handful up, and stared.

I don't recognise the bastard sigils. She thought anxiously and opened one of the bottles. Tentatively she sniffed the brew and then realised in frustration that she had no idea what she was scenting for.

'Dammit!' She cursed as she placed them back in his trunk. She shifted through some of the others and noticed that all of them had completely unrecognisable signs on them. There was no way of distinguishing what was what, and Siana, who had vehemently hated potions and elected it out of her timetable as soon as she could (it wasn't compulsory at Moreberries) had no other way of telling what was what.

She looked up towards the head of the bed, sighing, deciding which pillow looked most comfortable so that she could bring it downstairs to Snape. She caught sight of his small black bag and her eyes narrowed.

Siana felt no guilt about looking through his things at this time, he was unconscious on a cold floor, in a place she had never been to before. The only person who knew the precise area of their location, and the means of healing was to say the least, not about to get up and help her out.

She opened the bag and tipped the contents out onto the bed. A book fell out first, and then more bottles of potions, smaller bottles - all coloured black, with very faint sigils on them. Siana scowled as she picked one of them up, she couldn't read them either. Dammit to hell and back again. She reached to shift the book out of the way when she suddenly realised what the book was.

Charges laid on Death Eaters and Aurors of and immediately after the Voldemort Era.

What? Why is this book here Severus? Why'd you bring it? Momentarily distracted from the potions bottles, she opened it cautiously, her eyes scanning one of the pages she'd already read. Disgusting book. She thought quickly and sighed. She turned and grabbed one of the pillows and stood, sadness and fear flying through her.

Well there's nothing more I can do except wait for him to recover. Nothing more I can do. God, there's a helpless phrase, and here I thought I was doing well. I've just, I'm a threat to other people. Dad was...he always said I should never be exposed to other people. He was right. Dad, of all people, was right.

Siana frowned. She placed the black pillow onto the large book and cradled both in her arms as she looked around the room. It was mostly dark, very little light entered, and the torches in their sockets were burning low, so low that smoky black soot marks were being made against the brackets and the granite. The corners were blindly decorated with old cobwebs devoid of spiders that probably found very little sustenance in such a remote, cold and unkempt place. A place that very few saw the inside of, that very few knew the existence of.

How lonely I am.

Inside she ached to contact Dumbledore, but she had no way of contacting him, he had expressly forbade them to attempt to contact him. Had said that it wouldn't be necessary unless they were under siege, or being attacked. She simply couldn't risk breaking the protective barrier, Voldemort would probably sense the moment the shield came down...and Uncle Frederick would most likely be trying to sense her with the Locarius spell which had both doomed and saved her many times during her childhood.

The Locarius spell, how I wish I could be back in the forest, feeling it intrude upon my thoughts, feeling the family call back home. Oh Mum. A terrible weakness flooded through her and she sat down onto the bed, images of Camille, Nathan, her Mother, her Father all shooting through her head. Why, out of all of you, did Uncle Frederick have to live? Just, God, couldn't one more of you have survived? But no...ashes...scattered...without me. It's like their not even gone, it's like they just became nothing.

Siana looked around the room, a terrible sadness etched upon her face.

'Can you see me now? Mum? Can you?' She whispered. Her eyes burned dry in their sockets, her hands trembled though they were resting on her lap, her bones burned with an inner cold which she could not shake. 'Camille? Where'd you go?' She said helplessly, and an image came, a memory. One both welcome and reviled, terribly bittersweet.

Siana remembered the seven year old child, dressed in her tutu and ballet shoes, wings sprouting from her back and the sunlight causing a golden nimbus around her hair. Remembered her glowing violet eyes...the sound of laughter as she twirled and twirled in the kitchen in front of her mother and sister...a ballerina on a wooden floor, twirling near a table stacked with unwashed plates left by the men of the house. Rare that such happiness was ever expressed by a female in that house.

Siana swallowed, ran a shaking hand through her hair and then slid it under the book again. She knew that sitting on his bed, thinking about what could never be again, was not helping the situation, but at the moment she didn't care, she felt so lost. I have to pull myself together, seriously, you've been through so much before, you're strong, somewhere inside you have to be strong. Don't you? Aren't you strong?

'Am I?' Siana mouthed and then cringed. She wasn't being strong, not now. Impatiently she stood, ignored the trembling of her body and blinked moisture away from her eyes as she moved towards the staircase. She would do what she could, and no more. That was all there was left to do.

The sight of Snape lying prone on the floor startled her a little. Though she knew to expect it, it was still a shocking sight. His face was relaxed, something which smoothed some of the hard worn lines on his face and made him seem almost human. She winced as she saw the glass around him, prayed that he hadn't been cut. She doubted it, aside from the trickle of blood still moving from his mouth, she hadn't seen any other signs of blood.

What I've seen is enough anyway.

Gingerly she knelt next to him, and with much effort on her behalf she managed to move the pillow underneath his head, supporting his neck. He did not stir as she did this, nor did his breathing change. Siana whispered his name a few times, tugged on his hand a little and when there was no response she checked his pupils one more time. They were still dilated.

That snake went right through him. Right through him.

As she sat down at the table, she fingered the wand in one of the folds her robe. A frown crawled across her face as she touched it and inside her disgust curled like a horrible monster. Guilt lanced painfully through her, behind her eyes, started the headache which would later plague her thoughts, as headaches always did.

Sighing, reluctant to leave Snape's side just in case there was a change in his condition, she turned to look at the cover of the book which she hated. It was unobtrusive enough, a black leather cover with the title imprinted in gold leaf. It had been well looked through, the pages were soft with continual touching. Momentarily she wondered if it was Snape who had looked through it all those times but after a moment she changed her mind. There would be lots of people who would need to look through this for reference.

She opened the book to the page she was up to and she turned the page idly. The action of reading had been a comfort to her in the Archives. Her eyes narrowed almost lazily as fatigue chased the remnants of numbness away, and languor seeped into her limbs. Her eyes grazed the page thoughtfully, no names of importance stand out here. God...rape...yuck. The corners of her mouth turned, but otherwise she was too devoid of energy to care. The spell itself had sucked out a lot of her energy, her anger and her fear. Realising that she couldn't do anything for Snape caused the feelings of defeat that always made her retreat into tiredness.

She turned another page, briefly read a paragraph about Avery, who she'd met once. Avery, he was married to...was it Carmen Scarlett? That's the one. She's dead now, ah here it is...died from copularis infinatum...how horrible would that be? Siana's face went blank as she realised that in some ways what she had experienced had been similar. The lack of control...everything except for that kind of pain. Avery had always been into his curses. And he was openly a Death Eater...Dad was, good. He did bad things, but he hurt the Death Eaters, he thwarted them.

She shook her head slowly. She knew she was wrong, he had been an Auror, but he had been many other things also.

More pages turned, more names were recognisable, some events she remembered her father telling Frederick about in passing, others she had never even heard of. The details of each crime had not been edited, some were described in awfully graphic detail, more than one time she had to look up at the blank wall and wait for the nausea to quell. More than once she wanted to close the book, stop turning the pages, but the gruesome facts were compelling, and the world which she was discovering here in these pages made the situation she was now in feel less dramatic.

These people not only lost families, their families were massacred. Here...God, imagine finding your own child like that. She turned some more pages, scanned for names, and kept turning as the atrocities echoed in her head, the names with them ringing like some horrible bell.

Charges laid by Snape against Basilica. 'Hello.' Siana said with some surprise and licked her lips, her eyes flying to the top of the page. The date had been hidden by a blood smear, all too common on some of these pages.

~ The Snape vs Basilica Inquiry.

Charges: The complainant has alleged that the defendant placed two of the Unforgivable curses upon his sister, Lydia Snape, an innocent bystander in a war between Death Eaters and Aurors. He has been alleged to have attempted the Killing Curse, though did not succeed, and has been accused of other forms of torture to manipulate one Severus Snape into confessing for crimes (it has been noted that the crimes for which he was supposed to be confessing, were found to be the work of another Death Eater, now charged).

Convicted: Charges laid by Snape against Basilica have been found, due to the overwhelming evidence during trial, to be realistic. Kirk Basilica has been found guilty of all charges.

Sentence: Suspended life sentence in Azkaban. Medium security.

Personal comment; Judge Wright: A unique case where a Death Eater prevails in the courts, and braves imprisonment to see another imprisoned for a crime that was in my perspective heinous.

In the past Kirk Basilica has been let off lightly on charges, due to his importance among the Aurors both as a silent figurehead and a quiet battler, as well as his necessary function as Wizard Archivist. However now it has come to a time where he cannot be let off lightly, were it not for the need for his skill on the field I would demand immediate imprisonment in Azkaban. However I insist his suspended sentence be served once the threat of Voldemort is no more. ~

The pages dropped out of Siana's hands. Her mouth was dry, and she looked from the book to Snape, and back to the words on the page again. A million thoughts and questions raced like wildfire into her mind and she winced at the force of them. I didn't know Severus had a sister, how could Dad use the Unforgivable curses on an innocent? Why was he trying to get Snape to confess for something he hadn't done? Why did Dad never serve his sentence? I suppose the threat of Voldemort never really left, and Dad had enough sway amongst circles to stay employed. He always told me he hated Judge Wright, god I'm not surprised. I'm not surprised. I'm horrified.

The overcast sky suddenly blocked out the sun, and the temperature fell quickly, the light dimmed. More thunder rumbled, and a brief flare of lightning could be seen. Cold and remorse shuddered through her. 'I've been a fool. So closed minded...how could I have judged you so harshly?' She whispered to herself, not even looking at Snape, afraid she would start to cry. 'No wonder you hate us, Dad never served in Azkaban and you...I wonder where Lydia is now?' She muttered thoughtfully and groaned.

Her head thumped against the book. 'This is ridiculous.' She wanted to break the shield and contact Dumbledore the only way she knew how. After all she wasn't authorised to use the fireplace to contact Hogwarts, she doubted it was even connected up to the network, she had no owl...the weather was bad anyway, or promising to be bad at any rate. She did not know enough magic to bewitch a letter to Hogwarts.

'I'm sorry Severus. I swear, I swear if we ever get out of this, when we get out of this...I'm going to let you know how sorry I am.' She said, turning to look at him for the first time, supported on a soft pillow around shards of broken glass that no longer caught the light. 'I'm so sorry.' She left her chair and moved to his side, taking one of his cold and clammy hands between hers. I'm sorry for never realising, for never understanding, I'm sorry that you have to be involved in this mess, I'm sorry that I can't help you right now, that I don't know what I'm doing. I'm sorry for being so helpless.

She knelt forward slowly, sadness burning chasms in her mind, chewing chunks out of her health. Her lips pressed against his cold forehead tenderly and her eyes drifted shut. She felt at that moment, frozen in her action, and it was a long time before she could bring herself to draw away. When she did, she noticed that his breathing was more laboured, more irregular. His skin was more pale, something was wrong.

At that moment a gust of wind shot underneath the closed front door and stirred the pages in the book on the table and enticed goose flesh onto her arm. It circled around the room, whistled and howled. The pages flapped loudly and Siana rushed, shivering, to the book. As she went to snap it shut something else caught her eye.

The Fire Wand: Snape Vs Basilica. What...again? Her mind scanned the pages lightning quick and she caught her name. Her throat dried out and she went to start at the top of the page, at the beginning, a horrible feeling in her stomach, when Snape muttered something hoarsely.

The book was forgotten as she moved to his side once more. She placed a hand on his forehead, it was burning, yet the rest of him was icy cold. His throat was working, though no sound was coming out of his mouth, and his chest appeared to be heaving with strain - though every breath he took was shallow. I have to get him warm. I'll grab blankets.

As she stood to go back upstairs a sudden boom, so loud the very foundations seemed to shake, exploded upon Sibilant Stow. The door rattled, a terrible howling began, and the sound of hissing and splashing suddenly drowned out the sound of Snape's breathing.

The storm had hit.