The Soul Keeper

Chapter 7: Mind-Speak

Ginny heard Dumbledore´s words through a thick haze of other thoughts. What had he said?

She tried to clear her mind, to make herself think, but she couldn´t get the image of The Soul Keeper out of her head. Now that she knew what that necklace of Draco´s was, and who it was associated with...

Well, things just kept going from bad to worse.

The instant chatter that broke out after the Headmaster´s words finally pulled her out of her trance-like state.

" I wonder what he means?" Ron was asking her quietly.

" What?" Ginny asked, confused.

" I said, I wonder-" Ron started to repeat his question.

" No, not that." Ginny asked him to tell her what Dumbledore had said.

Ron, looking at her as if she had suddenly become a ghost, complied. " He said that he was giving us a challenge."

" What kind of challenge?"

" Gee, Ginny, if I knew that, I wouldn´t have asked you what he meant, would I?" Ron rolled his eyes. " Don´t you listen to anything anymore?"

Ginny ignored him, focusing her attention on Dumbledore, who seemed to be waiting patiently for the talk to end before continuing. She wished the other students would quit running their mouths already. Didn´t they realize that the sooner they shut up, the faster they would learn what they wanted?

Eventually, everyone seemed to catch on to what should have been an obvious fact, and quiet reigned in the Hall again.

" Some of you may be wondering what I´m talking about," Dumbledore began.

" so I´ll get right to it," he finished. " This year, the teachers and I have come up with a wonderful idea for individual students to challenge themselves, and one another, while at the same time participating to earn points for their house."

Dumbledore paused, but no one made any move to speak. They were all too intrigued to delay him any longer. Even Ginny found herself leaning forward, anticipation coursing through her veins. She didn´t know what the Headmaster was about to say, but she felt that it would be important. It sounded interesting.

" Any student interested, as long as they are in their sixth or seventh year, may participate. All you have to do is sign your name on the form which will be posted in the corridor right outside the Great Hall."

There were several groans at this, as some of the younger students, eager to prove themselves, discovered that they would not be able to take part.

" Here is how this works. All students who sign up will be paired with a partner. Each team will then be given a separate challenge that they have to meet by the end of one month. Since September is nearly over, partners will receive their first challenge on the first day of October. Which, for those of you who don´t keep track of the date," he smiled, "is this Monday. That gives everyone ample time to sign up. At the end of that month, every team that has completed their assignment will show proof of it. For some teams, they will have to prepare for a certain event and will be tested on it."

What was going on? Ginny couldn´t help wondering. Nothing like this had ever been heard of before! She felt excited, but at the same time, she was starting to get very nervous. What would happen if they failed?

As if he had read her mind, Dumbledore proceeded. " There is no punishment or dishonor if you fail, you simply do not pass your challenge, and the game is over. But if you win, you and your partner move on to the next round." Dumbledore paused to let the students absorb this. " I won´t lie to you. Your tasks will not be easy. The farther you get, the harder the assignments will become. At the end of the year, there will probably be only one team left. Those two students will be honored for their hard work and diligence with one hundred points apiece for their respective houses."

Instantly, the silence was broken as students tried to imagine themselves winning that many points for their house. It could mean the difference between winning the house cup and losing it. Many were concerned about the nature of the challenges themselves. What would they have to do?

Ginny however, was becoming impatient with the constant interruptions. They could talk later, but right now they needed to hear what he had to say. Harry, Ron, and Hermione seemed to feel the same way, because they kept exchanging glances and looking around with slightly disgusted expressions at all the students who couldn´t keep their mouths closed for more than ten seconds.

Dumbledore had quite a hard time restoring order, and after 5 minutes of, " Quiet please, quiet" it still wasn´t working.

Suddenly, Dean Thomas jumped up from his place at the Gryffindor table. " Can everyone PLEASE be quiet! I, for one, would like to hear what else the Headmaster has to say." Dean´s loud voice got the message across. After a few more snide comments about loud mouth Gryffindors, silence returned.

" Thank you Dean," Dumbledore said, a smile twitching at the corner of his lips. " As I was saying, the winning team receives one hundred points apiece for their efforts, and a trophy with their names on it will be awarded to them." He stopped, looking out into the faces of the students, many of who were still open mouthed at the whole "challenge" idea.

" Thank you all for your time, you may get back to your lunch now." With that, Dumbledore returned to his seat at the high table and fell into discussion with several of the professors.

Ginny watched, sure that they were talking about the effect his speech had had an the students. Sure enough, everyone was talking animatedly, and when Ginny turned back around, she saw that Ron, Harry, and Hermione were already deep in discussion themselves.

She could have joined in, she knew, but instead, she stayed quiet, content just to let things flow around inside her own mind. The teachers were challenging the students, huh? Well, Ginny figured that she had no choice but to accept. She wanted to accept. While the details of what they would be doing were still a mystery, she couldn´t deny the fact that the whole idea sounded fun. It was like a competition. Let´s see who wants to win the most and make them work for it. Even as she contemplated the motive behind the "game" she couldn´t help but shake her head in admiration at the ingeniousness of it. The Headmaster and the Professors had found a subtle, yet effective way of making the older students learn more. The first of the challenges probably included simple things, researching the ingredients of a rare potion, writing essays on a certain, hard-to-come-by subject, or something of the kind. Things where lots of research was required. After that, they´d probably have students learn certain tough spells and then perform them. Each time, the ranks of advancing students would get smaller, until there was only one group left. But along the way, they were sure to have at least half of the two oldest years studying harder than ever before.

Pure brilliance.

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At the same time Ginny was admiring the intricacies of Dumbledore´s challenge, Draco Malfoy´s thoughts were moving much along the same lines.

Draco honestly hadn´t known the old man had it in him.

Draco about knocked the table over as he jumped, startled. Several of his housemates gave him inquiring glances, while some just sent him disdainful stares that flat out said, " Stop acting stupid".

Draco ignored them all, trying to pretend instead that nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

And it almost worked too, for a moment. Until Draco heard it´s laughter in his head.

Still, as low as his whisper was, it seemed to be enough.

Person? Friend? When had this interesting new development occurred? Before Draco could open his mouth to ask questions, The Voice spoke up again.

Was it crazy?! Very few witches and wizards could mind speak. It was a very rare gift. Still, Draco thought, maybe it´s different when something is already speaking to you like that first.

So he tried it. In the middle of the Great Hall, with students talking loudly all around, and the constant clatter of forks and spoons in his ears, Draco closed his eyes and concentrated.

Nothing.

Again, nothing happened. But just when he was about to give up, just when he had decided that there was too much noise to concentrate correctly, he felt a faint presence in the back of his mind that had been missing before.

The feeling was familiar, and for the first time Draco realized that what he felt, that presence, was the same thing he felt when the Voice spoke to him, and when he had been trapped in that dark room of his nightmares.

Strange, how he´d never even noticed that he could feel it in his mind before.

It sounded pleased.

What was it talking about? The only time it had ever come to Draco before was to hurt him, and now all of a sudden it was trying to be conversational? What gave?

Draco wondered if the Voice realized what it had given away with that single statement. It had trouble understanding spoken speech, huh? That was good. It was information. Draco could work with that. He had already come to the conclusion that he had to get rid of this thing. He didn´t want anyone trying to control him, which was exactly what it was trying to do. Control him.

Even now, Draco´s mind was fast at work, trying to examine the problem from all possible angles and come up with a solution. To bad the only picture he kept seeing was of Ginny sitting in the library earlier...

A soft laugh. So, the girl is dominating your thoughts now. How sweet.

It didn´t sound like it thought it was sweet at all. In fact, the same distaste, the same disdain that had been in it´s voice the day before was back. But this time it was stronger.

Silence. And then, a single, faint sound. The sound of soft, mocking laughter.

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After lunch, Ginny rushed from her seat. Since Gryffindor table was closest to the door, she was one of the first into the corridor to look at the list. It was blank so far. Several other students were gathered around, but none of the older one´s moved to put their names up.

Pushing through them politely, Ginny tried to reach for the pen that was hanging beside the sign up paper. Seeing what she was trying to do, the students blocking her way moved back.

Quickly, for the crowd of students was becoming much larger, she signed her name on the top line. Stepping back, she found she was a little proud of herself. She had been the first one to sign up for the "challenge".

She was watching several more students sign their own names, so she didn´t notice when three other people came to stand beside her at first.

" Did you sign up, Gin?" Hermione asked. She seemed a little nervous, like she wasn´t quite sure what to make of the whole thing.

Ginny glanced up quickly, but before she had a chance to answer, Harry spoke up. " Of course she did. Ginny never turns down a challenge, do you?"

Ginny grinned. " No way." She glanced towards Ron, then back at Harry and Hermione. " Are you three going to sign up?"

Ron answered first. " I don´t know about them, but I am. It sounds like it´ll be fun. Besides, it´s a chance to earn Gryffindor a hundred points. After the little incident where we were out after curfew, it would be good to get those points back."

Harry agreed. " Yeah, I´m signing up too. Wouldn´t miss it for the world." He paused, seemingly to think about that for a minute. " Okay, maybe I would miss it for the whole world..."

Ginny laughed along with Harry and Ron, but Hermione was unusually silent.

" What about you, Herm?" Ginny asked when she realized that Hermione wasn´t joining in.

The older girl frowned, chewing her lower lip thoughtfully. " I don´t know. It sounds awfully dangerous. And risky. Dumbledore didn´t give us any idea what to expect for the challenges. What if we´re supposed to fight a dragon or something?"

Everyone was quiet at that.

Then Harry put in, " Well, it´s really not that bad. Fighting a dragon, I mean. Its when it starts fighting back that´s the problem."

For the first ten seconds, no one said anything. Then they all burst into laughter at once.

Hermione even had the good grace to smile at herself. " I guess I am being a little paranoid, aren´t I?" She sighed. " Alright, I´ll do it. Count me in." She started for the sign up line, Ron and Harry in tow.

" Let´s just hope that two of us get paired up together. I wonder how they`re choosing partners anyway..." Ginny heard Hermione saying as they walked off, her voice growing fainter as they disappeared into the crowd.

Ginny stood to the side for a few more minutes, silently laughing at the way everyone was trying to make their way to the form at one time, shoving and pushing each other around in the process.

She started on her way down the hall, mind full of questions. She had gotten halfway to the Gryffindor Common Room before she suddenly remembered.

The library!

Running as fast as her legs could carry her, she reached the double doors in record time.

She headed for the back of the room, wanting to double check the title of the other book to make sure she had it right. She had no sooner began approaching the correct bookshelf when she noticed that something didn´t seem right. There was an empty place where a book had once been. A horrible sensation gripped her.

She slowed her pace, knowing what she would find. Just to be sure, she looked anyway.